libgit2 is a portable, pure C implementation of the Git core methods provided as a
re-entrant linkable library with a solid API, allowing you to write native
speed custom Git applications in any language with bindings.
libgit2 is licensed under a very permissive license (GPLv2 with a special
Linking Exception). This basically means that you can link it (unmodified)
with any kind of software without having to release its source code.
Additionally, the example code has been released to the public domain (see the
separate license for more information).
- Website: libgit2.github.com
- StackOverflow Tag: libgit2
- Issues: GitHub Issues (Right here!)
- API documentation: http://libgit2.github.com/libgit2
- IRC: #libgit2 on irc.freenode.net.
- Mailing list: The libgit2 mailing list was traditionally hosted in Librelist but has been deprecated. We encourage you to use StackOverflow instead for any questions regarding the library, or open an issue on GitHub for bug reports. The mailing list archives are still available at http://librelist.com/browser/libgit2/.
libgit2 is already very usable and is being used in production for many applications including the GitHub.com site, in Plastic SCM
and also powering Microsoft's Visual Studio tools for Git. The library provides:
- SHA conversions, formatting and shortening
- abstracted ODB backend system
- commit, tag, tree and blob parsing, editing, and write-back
- tree traversal
- revision walking
- index file (staging area) manipulation
- reference management (including packed references)
- config file management
- high level repository management
- thread safety and reentrancy
- descriptive and detailed error messages
- ...and more (over 175 different API calls)
While the library provides git functionality without the need for dependencies, it can make use of a few libraries to add to it:
- pthreads (non-Windows) to enable threadsafe access as well as multi-threaded pack generation
- OpenSSL (non-Windows) to talk over HTTPS and provide the SHA-1 functions
- LibSSH2 to enable the ssh transport
- iconv (OSX) to handle the HFS+ path encoding peculiarities
libgit2 builds cleanly on most platforms without any external dependencies.
Under Unix-like systems, like Linux, *BSD and Mac OS X, libgit2 expects pthreads to be available;
they should be installed by default on all systems. Under Windows, libgit2 uses the native Windows API
for threading.
The libgit2 library is built using CMake 2.6+ (http://www.cmake.org) on all platforms.
On most systems you can build the library using the following commands
$ mkdir build && cd build
$ cmake ..
$ cmake --build .
Alternatively you can point the CMake GUI tool to the CMakeLists.txt file and generate platform specific build project or IDE workspace.
To install the library you can specify the install prefix by setting:
$ cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/install/prefix
$ cmake --build . --target install
For more advanced use or ques 84B0 tions about CMake please read http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_FAQ.
The following CMake variables are declared:
BIN_INSTALL_DIR: Where to install binaries to.LIB_INSTALL_DIR: Where to install libraries to.INCLUDE_INSTALL_DIR: Where to install headers to.BUILD_SHARED_LIBS: Build libgit2 as a Shared Library (defaults to ON)BUILD_CLAR: Build Clar-based test suite (defaults to ON)THREADSAFE: Build libgit2 with threading support (defaults to OFF)STDCALL: Build libgit2 asstdcall. Turn off forcdecl(Windows; defaults to ON)
CMake lets you specify a few variables to control the behavior of the compiler and linker. These flags are rarely used but can be useful for 64-bit to 32-bit cross-compilation.
CMAKE_C_FLAGS: Set your own compiler flagsCMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH: Override the search path for librariesZLIB_LIBRARY,OPENSSL_SSL_LIBRARYANDOPENSSL_CRYPTO_LIBRARY: Tell CMake where to find those specific libraries
If you want to build a universal binary for Mac OS X, CMake sets it
all up for you if you use -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES="i386;x86_64"
when configuring.
You need to run the CMake commands from the Visual Studio command prompt, not the regular or Windows SDK one. Select the right generator for your version with the `-G "Visual Studio X" option.
See [the wiki] (https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2/wiki/Building-libgit2-on-Windows) for more detailed instructions.
Extract toolchain from NDK using, make-standalone-toolchain.sh script.
Optionally, crosscompile and install OpenSSL inside of it. Then create CMake
toolchain file that configures paths to your crosscompiler (substitute {PATH}
with full path to the toolchain):
SET(CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME Linux)
SET(CMAKE_SYSTEM_VERSION Android)
SET(CMAKE_C_COMPILER {PATH}/bin/arm-linux-androideabi-gcc)
SET(CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER {PATH}/bin/arm-linux-androideabi-g++)
SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH {PATH}/sysroot/)
SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_PROGRAM NEVER)
SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_LIBRARY ONLY)
SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_INCLUDE ONLY)
Add -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE={pathToToolchainFile} -DANDROID=1 to cmake command
when configuring.
Here are the bindings to libgit2 that are currently available:
- C++
- libqgit2, Qt bindings https://projects.kde.org/projects/playground/libs/libqgit2/
- Chicken Scheme
- chicken-git https://wiki.call-cc.org/egg/git
- D
- Delphi
- GitForDelphi https://github.com/libgit2/GitForDelphi
- Erlang
- Go
- GObject
- libgit2-glib https://live.gnome.org/Libgit2-glib
- Haskell
- Lua
- .NET
- libgit2sharp https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2sharp
- Node.js
- node-gitteh https://github.com/libgit2/node-gitteh
- nodegit https://github.com/tbranyen/nodegit
- Objective-C
- objective-git https://github.com/libgit2/objective-git
- OCaml
- libgit2-ocaml https://github.com/burdges/libgit2-ocaml
- Parrot Virtual Machine
- parrot-libgit2 https://github.com/letolabs/parrot-libgit2
- Perl
- PHP
- Python
- Ruby
- Vala
If you start another language binding to libgit2, please let us know so we can add it to the list.
Check the contribution guidelines.
libgit2 is under GPL2 with linking exemption. This means you
can link to and use the library from any program, proprietary or open source; paid
or gratis. However, you cannot modify libgit2 and distribute it without
supplying the source.
See the COPYING file for the full license text.