What is the meaning of : "git+https://github.com/...."?

Question

What does url of the kind git+https mean? I was installing an application and the command suggested was

"pip install -e git+https://github.com......"

Can someone please explain what it means.

Solution

A URL like git://github.com will mean just the plain Git protocol. To clarify that it should use Git over HTTPS instead, the protocol is written git+https. Now, git itself does not need this, you can do just git clone https://....

For other tools like pip, which can handle many protocols, https://... will indicate that it should do just a GET request for that URL, and git:// would indicate that it should attempt to clone the repo with the plain Git protocol. git+https is used to indicate that it should clone the repo over HTTPS (just as git+ssh is used to indicate it should do so using SSH).

Comments

[rsp]

This is the correct answer, not the highest scored one.