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GIST(1) Gist manual GIST(1)

NAME

gist - upload code to https://gist.github.com

Synopsis

The gist gem provides a gist command that you can use from your terminal to upload content to https://gist.github.com/.

Installation

If you have ruby installed:
gem install gist
If you´re using Bundler:
source :rubygems gem ´gist´
For OS X, gist lives in Homebrew
brew install gist

Command

To upload the contents of a.rb just:
gist-paste a.rb
Upload multiple files:
gist-paste a b c gist *.rb
By default it reads from STDIN, and you can set a filename with -f.
gist-paste -f test.rb <a.rb
Alternatively, you can just paste from the clipboard:
gist-paste -P
Use -p to make the gist private:
gist-paste -p a.rb
Use -d to add a description:
gist-paste -d "Random rbx bug" a.rb
You can update existing gists with -u:
gist-paste -u GIST_ID FILE_NAME gist -u 42f2c239d2eb57299408 test.txt
If you´d like to copy the resulting URL to your clipboard, use -c.
gist-paste -c <a.rb
If you´d like to copy the resulting embeddable URL to your clipboard, use -e.
gist-paste -e <a.rb
And you can just ask gist to open a browser window directly with -o.
gist-paste -o <a.rb
To list (public gists or all gists for authed user) gists for user
gist-paste -l : all gists for authed user gist -l defunkt : list defunkt´s public gists
See gist --help for more detail.

Login

If you want to associate your gists with your GitHub account, you need to login with gist. It doesn´t store your username and password, it just uses them to get an OAuth2 token (with the "gist" permission).
gist-paste --login
Obtaining OAuth2 access_token from github.
GitHub username: ConradIrwin
GitHub password:
2-factor auth code:
Success! https://github.com/settings/applications
    

This token is stored in ~/.gist and used for all future gisting. If you need to you can revoke it from https://github.com/settings/applications, or just delete the file. If you need to store tokens for both github.com and a Github Enterprise instance you can save your Github Enterprise token in ~/.gist.github.example.com where "github.example.com" is the URL for your Github Enterprise instance.

After you´ve done this, you can still upload gists anonymously with -a.
gist-paste -a a.rb
You can also use Gist as a library from inside your ruby code:
Gist.gist("Look.at(:my => ´awesome´).code")

If you need more advanced features you can also pass:

  • :access_token to authenticate using OAuth2 (default is `File.read("~/.gist")).
  • :filename to change the syntax highlighting (default is a.rb).
  • :public if you want your gist to have a guessable url.
  • :description to add a description to your gist.
  • :update to update an existing gist (can be a URL or an id).
  • :anonymous to submit an anonymous gist (default is false).
  • :copy to copy the resulting URL to the clipboard (default is false).
  • :open to open the resulting URL in a browser (default is false).

NOTE: The access_token must have the "gist" scope.

If you want to upload multiple files in the same gist, you can:
Gist.multi_gist("a.rb" => "Foo.bar", "a.py" => "Foo.bar")
If you´d rather use gist´s builtin access_token, then you can force the user to obtain one by calling:
Gist.login!
This will take them through the process of obtaining an OAuth2 token, and storing it in ~/.gist, where it can later be read by Gist.gist

GitHub enterprise

If you´d like gist to use your locally installed GitHub Enterprise https://enterprise.github.com/, you need to export the GITHUB_URL environment variable in your ~/.bashrc.
export GITHUB_URL=http://github.internal.example.com/
Once you´ve done this and restarted your terminal (or run source ~/.bashrc), gist will automatically use github enterprise instead of the public github.com

Configuration

If you´d like -o or -c to be the default when you use the gist executable, add an alias to your ~/.bashrc (or equivalent). For example:
alias gist=´gist -c´
If you´d prefer gist to open a different browser, then you can export the BROWSER environment variable:
export BROWSER=google-chrome

If clipboard or browser integration don´t work on your platform, please file a bug or (more ideally) a pull request.

If you need to use an HTTP proxy to access the internet, export the HTTP_PROXY or http_proxy environment variable and gist will use it.

Meta-fu

Thanks to @defunkt and @indirect for writing and maintaining versions 1 through 3. Thanks to @rking and @ConradIrwin for maintaining version 4.

Licensed under the MIT license. Bug-reports, and pull requests are welcome.

November 2015