Multiline Commit Messages With `git commit -m

When you execute git commit on the command line, your specified editor opens and you can create an expressive title and a longer description.

That is probably nothing new.

You are probably also aware of the shortcut git commit -m <message>, which skips the step with the editor.

But there is only room for the title, right?

Nope, this is not true.

one way

It turns out you can use -m multiple times. For the second -m and each additional -m a new paragraph will be created.

So when you enter git commit -m MyTitle -m MyDescription, you will get a commit message like…

commit <xxx>
Author: Jürgen Gmach <xxx>
Date:   So Feb 12 09:16:52 2023 +0100

    MyTitle

    MyDescription

another way

While the above way is certainly preferable most of the time, you can also use a lesser known Bash feature, depending on who you ask it is either called ANSI-C Quoting, or shell bling strings :-).

git commit -m $'MyTitle\n\nMyDescription'

The way it works is, that the enclosed string gets expanded first, as specified by the ANSI C standard.

The result is then handled as a regular single-quoted string, as if the dollar sign had not been there in the first place.

why

Occasionally, I use a wrapper around git and there you are only able to pass in one string for the commit message.

thanks

Thanks to Anthony Sottile pointing me in this direction!