Add line break to git commit -m from command line on Windows

Question

My company has a policy that all checkins to a particular project must follow a specific multi-line template for git commits. How can I most simply create a single commit message that has multiple lines from the command line in Windows?

_{This is almost exactly a duplicate of "Add line break to git commit -m from command line" except that this question is specific to Windows/cmd.exe, while that question is related to bash.}

score 16 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 25 '13 at 20:56

Either create a file that contains your commit message in the right format and use git commit -F <message_file>, after which you can continually edit and reuse that same file, or create a template file and use git commit -t <template_file> to open your editor with the pre-cooked template to be filled in. The second option can be made permanent by setting the commit.template configuration variable, so you don't need to use the -t ... bit on every commit. See the git commit manual page (git help commit, if your git is installed correctly, or search online) for more information.

score 15 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 08 '14 at 12:00

15

You can create multiline commit message like this:

C:\> git commit -m "Line 1"^
More?
More? "Line 2"^
More?
More? "Line 3"

Note, that the circumflex character is only on odd lines.

answered Jul 08 '14 at 12:00

Jan Voráček

312
2
8

2

doesn't work to input an empty line between message title, body and footer – André Werlang May 27 '15 at 19:56
I like this answer anyway :) – elliotching Oct 23 '19 at 08:37

score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 26 '21 at 08:55

6

git commit -m "Subject" -m "Description..."

answered Feb 26 '21 at 08:55

Lucas Gonzaga

86
1
3

Underrated answer – sj_959 Jul 14 '23 at 09:51

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 13 '17 at 08:15

2

You can also use interactive rebase and then reword for editing the commit's message.

Type git commit -m "doesnt really matter whats here" and then git rebase -i HEAD~1, replace pick with r or reword, save and then edit the message.

answered Jul 13 '17 at 08:15

Albert221

5,223
5
25
41

3

This is much easier than the accepted answer! Though, instead of an interactive rebase, you could save a step and use `git commit --amend`. – Mike Apr 04 '18 at 17:21
Sure! But this will work only for latest commit, rebase works for any! :) – Albert221 Apr 04 '18 at 18:03

Add line break to git commit -m from command line on Windows

4 Answers4

Linked