How do I exit from the text window in Git?

newbie picture newbie · Feb 7, 2012 · Viewed 260.3k times · Source

I am using Windows and before committing, Git wants me to enter a text message and a new text window appears.

screenshot

How can I exit from this?

I am trying to learn Git. So, a little help will be highly appreciated.

Answer

manojlds picture manojlds · Feb 7, 2012

Since you are learning Git, know that this has little to do with git but with the text editor configured for use. In vim, you can press i to start entering text and save by pressing esc and :wq and enter, this will commit with the message you typed. In your current state, to just come out without committing, you can do :q instead of the :wq as mentioned above.

Alternatively, you can just do git commit -m '<message>' instead of having git open the editor to type the message.

Note that you can also change the editor and use something you are comfortable with ( like notepad) - How can I set up an editor to work with Git on Windows?