Add line break to 'git commit -m' from the command line

Question

I am using Git from the command line and am trying to add a line break to the commit message (using git commit -m "") without going into Vim.

Is this possible?

Answer 1

Certainly, how it's done depends on your shell. In Bash, you can use single quotes around the message and can just leave the quote open, which will make Bash prompt for another line, until you close the quote. Like this:

git commit -m 'Message  goes here' 

Alternatively, you can use a "here document" (also known as heredoc):

git commit -F- <<EOF Message  goes here EOF 

Answer 2

If you just want, say, a head line and a content line, you can use:

git commit -m "My head line" -m "My content line." 

Note that this creates separate paragraphs - not lines. So there will be a blank line between each two -m lines, e.g.:

My head line  My content line.