1GIT-DIFF(1) Git Manual GIT-DIFF(1)
2
6 git-diff - Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc
7
9 git diff [<options>] [<commit>] [--] [<path>...]
10 git diff [<options>] --cached [<commit>] [--] [<path>...]
11 git diff [<options>] <commit> <commit> [--] [<path>...]
12 git diff [<options>] <blob> <blob>
13 git diff [<options>] --no-index [--] <path> <path>
14
17 Show changes between the working tree and the index or a tree, changes
18 between the index and a tree, changes between two trees, changes
19 between two blob objects, or changes between two files on disk.
20 git diff [<options>] [--] [<path>...]
22 This form is to view the changes you made relative to the index
23 (staging area for the next commit). In other words, the differences
24 are what you could tell Git to further add to the index but you
25 still haven’t. You can stage these changes by using git-add(1).
26 git diff [<options>] --no-index [--] <path> <path>
28 This form is to compare the given two paths on the filesystem. You
29 can omit the --no-index option when running the command in a
30 working tree controlled by Git and at least one of the paths points
31 outside the working tree, or when running the command outside a
32 working tree controlled by Git.
33 git diff [<options>] --cached [<commit>] [--] [<path>...]
35 This form is to view the changes you staged for the next commit
36 relative to the named <commit>. Typically you would want comparison
37 with the latest commit, so if you do not give <commit>, it defaults
38 to HEAD. If HEAD does not exist (e.g. unborn branches) and <commit>
39 is not given, it shows all staged changes. --staged is a synonym of
40 --cached.
41 git diff [<options>] <commit> [--] [<path>...]
43 This form is to view the changes you have in your working tree
44 relative to the named <commit>. You can use HEAD to compare it with
45 the latest commit, or a branch name to compare with the tip of a
46 different branch.
47 git diff [<options>] <commit> <commit> [--] [<path>...]
49 This is to view the changes between two arbitrary <commit>.
50 git diff [<options>] <commit>..<commit> [--] [<path>...]
52 This is synonymous to the previous form. If <commit> on one side is
53 omitted, it will have the same effect as using HEAD instead.
54 git diff [<options>] <commit>...<commit> [--] [<path>...]
56 This form is to view the changes on the branch containing and up to
57 the second <commit>, starting at a common ancestor of both
58 <commit>. "git diff A...B" is equivalent to "git diff $(git
59 merge-base A B) B". You can omit any one of <commit>, which has the
60 same effect as using HEAD instead.
61 Just in case you are doing something exotic, it should be noted that
63 all of the <commit> in the above description, except in the last two
64 forms that use ".." notations, can be any <tree>.
65 For a more complete list of ways to spell <commit>, see "SPECIFYING
67 REVISIONS" section in gitrevisions(7). However, "diff" is about
68 comparing two endpoints, not ranges, and the range notations
69 ("<commit>..<commit>" and "<commit>...<commit>") do not mean a range as
70 defined in the "SPECIFYING RANGES" section in gitrevisions(7).
71 git diff [<options>] <blob> <blob>
73 This form is to view the differences between the raw contents of
74 two blob objects.
75
77 -p, -u, --patch
78 Generate patch (see section on generating patches). This is the
79 default.
80 -s, --no-patch
82 Suppress diff output. Useful for commands like git show that show
83 the patch by default, or to cancel the effect of --patch.
84 -U<n>, --unified=<n>
86 Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual
87 three. Implies -p.
88 --raw
90 Generate the diff in raw format.
91 --patch-with-raw
93 Synonym for -p --raw.
94 --indent-heuristic
96 Enable the heuristic that shifts diff hunk boundaries to make
97 patches easier to read. This is the default.
98 --no-indent-heuristic
100 Disable the indent heuristic.
101 --minimal
103 Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
104 produced.
105 --patience
107 Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
108 --histogram
110 Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.
111 --anchored=<text>
113 Generate a diff using the "anchored diff" algorithm.
114 This option may be specified more than once.
116 If a line exists in both the source and destination, exists only
118 once, and starts with this text, this algorithm attempts to prevent
119 it from appearing as a deletion or addition in the output. It uses
120 the "patience diff" algorithm internally.
121 --diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}
123 Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
124 default, myers
126 The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the
127 default.
128 minimal
130 Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
131 produced.
132 patience
134 Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
135 histogram
137 This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
138 low-occurrence common elements".
139 For instance, if you configured the diff.algorithm variable to a
141 non-default value and want to use the default one, then you have to
142 use --diff-algorithm=default option.
143 --stat[=<width>[,<name-width>[,<count>]]]
145 Generate a diffstat. By default, as much space as necessary will be
146 used for the filename part, and the rest for the graph part.
147 Maximum width defaults to terminal width, or 80 columns if not
148 connected to a terminal, and can be overridden by <width>. The
149 width of the filename part can be limited by giving another width
150 <name-width> after a comma. The width of the graph part can be
151 limited by using --stat-graph-width=<width> (affects all commands
152 generating a stat graph) or by setting diff.statGraphWidth=<width>
153 (does not affect git format-patch). By giving a third parameter
154 <count>, you can limit the output to the first <count> lines,
155 followed by ... if there are more.
156 These parameters can also be set individually with
158 --stat-width=<width>, --stat-name-width=<name-width> and
159 --stat-count=<count>.
160 --compact-summary
162 Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
163 file creations or deletions ("new" or "gone", optionally "+l" if
164 it’s a symlink) and mode changes ("+x" or "-x" for adding or
165 removing executable bit respectively) in diffstat. The information
166 is put between the filename part and the graph part. Implies
167 --stat.
168 --numstat
170 Similar to --stat, but shows number of added and deleted lines in
171 decimal notation and pathname without abbreviation, to make it more
172 machine friendly. For binary files, outputs two - instead of saying
173 0 0.
174 --shortstat
176 Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
177 number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
178 lines.
179 --dirstat[=<param1,param2,...>]
181 Output the distribution of relative amount of changes for each
182 sub-directory. The behavior of --dirstat can be customized by
183 passing it a comma separated list of parameters. The defaults are
184 controlled by the diff.dirstat configuration variable (see git-
185 config(1)). The following parameters are available:
186 changes
188 Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have
189 been removed from the source, or added to the destination. This
190 ignores the amount of pure code movements within a file. In
191 other words, rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much
192 as other changes. This is the default behavior when no
193 parameter is given.
194 lines
196 Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based
197 diff analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts. (For
198 binary files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary files
199 have no natural concept of lines). This is a more expensive
200 --dirstat behavior than the changes behavior, but it does count
201 rearranged lines within a file as much as other changes. The
202 resulting output is consistent with what you get from the other
203 --*stat options.
204 files
206 Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files
207 changed. Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat
208 analysis. This is the computationally cheapest --dirstat
209 behavior, since it does not have to look at the file contents
210 at all.
211 cumulative
213 Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory as
214 well. Note that when using cumulative, the sum of the
215 percentages reported may exceed 100%. The default
216 (non-cumulative) behavior can be specified with the
217 noncumulative parameter.
218 <limit>
220 An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by
221 default). Directories contributing less than this percentage of
222 the changes are not shown in the output.
223 Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring
225 directories with less than 10% of the total amount of changed
226 files, and accumulating child directory counts in the parent
227 directories: --dirstat=files,10,cumulative.
228 --summary
230 Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
231 creations, renames and mode changes.
232 --patch-with-stat
234 Synonym for -p --stat.
235 -z
237 When --raw, --numstat, --name-only or --name-status has been given,
238 do not munge pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
239 Without this option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
241 as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see
242 git-config(1)).
243 --name-only
245 Show only names of changed files.
246 --name-status
248 Show only names and status of changed files. See the description of
249 the --diff-filter option on what the status letters mean.
250 --submodule[=<format>]
252 Specify how differences in submodules are shown. When specifying
253 --submodule=short the short format is used. This format just shows
254 the names of the commits at the beginning and end of the range.
255 When --submodule or --submodule=log is specified, the log format is
256 used. This format lists the commits in the range like git-
257 submodule(1) summary does. When --submodule=diff is specified, the
258 diff format is used. This format shows an inline diff of the
259 changes in the submodule contents between the commit range.
260 Defaults to diff.submodule or the short format if the config option
261 is unset.
262 --color[=<when>]
264 Show colored diff. --color (i.e. without =<when>) is the same as
265 --color=always. <when> can be one of always, never, or auto. It
266 can be changed by the color.ui and color.diff configuration
267 settings.
268 --no-color
270 Turn off colored diff. This can be used to override configuration
271 settings. It is the same as --color=never.
272 --color-moved[=<mode>]
274 Moved lines of code are colored differently. It can be changed by
275 the diff.colorMoved configuration setting. The <mode> defaults to
276 no if the option is not given and to zebra if the option with no
277 mode is given. The mode must be one of:
278 no
280 Moved lines are not highlighted.
281 default
283 Is a synonym for zebra. This may change to a more sensible mode
284 in the future.
285 plain
287 Any line that is added in one location and was removed in
288 another location will be colored with color.diff.newMoved.
289 Similarly color.diff.oldMoved will be used for removed lines
290 that are added somewhere else in the diff. This mode picks up
291 any moved line, but it is not very useful in a review to
292 determine if a block of code was moved without permutation.
293 blocks
295 Blocks of moved text of at least 20 alphanumeric characters are
296 detected greedily. The detected blocks are painted using either
297 the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color. Adjacent blocks cannot be
298 told apart.
299 zebra
301 Blocks of moved text are detected as in blocks mode. The blocks
302 are painted using either the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color or
303 color.diff.{old,new}MovedAlternative. The change between the
304 two colors indicates that a new block was detected.
305 dimmed-zebra
307 Similar to zebra, but additional dimming of uninteresting parts
308 of moved code is performed. The bordering lines of two adjacent
309 blocks are considered interesting, the rest is uninteresting.
310 dimmed_zebra is a deprecated synonym.
311 --no-color-moved
313 Turn off move detection. This can be used to override configuration
314 settings. It is the same as --color-moved=no.
315 --color-moved-ws=<modes>
317 This configures how whitespace is ignored when performing the move
318 detection for --color-moved. It can be set by the diff.colorMovedWS
319 configuration setting. These modes can be given as a comma
320 separated list:
321 no
323 Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection.
324 ignore-space-at-eol
326 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
327 ignore-space-change
329 Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace
330 at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
331 whitespace characters to be equivalent.
332 ignore-all-space
334 Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores
335 differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
336 line has none.
337 allow-indentation-change
339 Initially ignore any whitespace in the move detection, then
340 group the moved code blocks only into a block if the change in
341 whitespace is the same per line. This is incompatible with the
342 other modes.
343 --no-color-moved-ws
345 Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection. This can
346 be used to override configuration settings. It is the same as
347 --color-moved-ws=no.
348 --word-diff[=<mode>]
350 Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words. By
351 default, words are delimited by whitespace; see --word-diff-regex
352 below. The <mode> defaults to plain, and must be one of:
353 color
355 Highlight changed words using only colors. Implies --color.
356 plain
358 Show words as [-removed-] and {+added+}. Makes no attempts to
359 escape the delimiters if they appear in the input, so the
360 output may be ambiguous.
361 porcelain
363 Use a special line-based format intended for script
364 consumption. Added/removed/unchanged runs are printed in the
365 usual unified diff format, starting with a +/-/` ` character at
366 the beginning of the line and extending to the end of the line.
367 Newlines in the input are represented by a tilde ~ on a line of
368 its own.
369 none
371 Disable word diff again.
372 Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to
374 highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
375 --word-diff-regex=<regex>
377 Use <regex> to decide what a word is, instead of considering runs
378 of non-whitespace to be a word. Also implies --word-diff unless it
379 was already enabled.
380 Every non-overlapping match of the <regex> is considered a word.
382 Anything between these matches is considered whitespace and
383 ignored(!) for the purposes of finding differences. You may want to
384 append |[^[:space:]] to your regular expression to make sure that
385 it matches all non-whitespace characters. A match that contains a
386 newline is silently truncated(!) at the newline.
387 For example, --word-diff-regex=. will treat each character as a
389 word and, correspondingly, show differences character by character.
390 The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration
392 option, see gitattributes(5) or git-config(1). Giving it explicitly
393 overrides any diff driver or configuration setting. Diff drivers
394 override configuration settings.
395 --color-words[=<regex>]
397 Equivalent to --word-diff=color plus (if a regex was specified)
398 --word-diff-regex=<regex>.
399 --no-renames
401 Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives
402 the default to do so.
403 --check
405 Warn if changes introduce conflict markers or whitespace errors.
406 What are considered whitespace errors is controlled by
407 core.whitespace configuration. By default, trailing whitespaces
408 (including lines that consist solely of whitespaces) and a space
409 character that is immediately followed by a tab character inside
410 the initial indent of the line are considered whitespace errors.
411 Exits with non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible
412 with --exit-code.
413 --ws-error-highlight=<kind>
415 Highlight whitespace errors in the context, old or new lines of the
416 diff. Multiple values are separated by comma, none resets previous
417 values, default reset the list to new and all is a shorthand for
418 old,new,context. When this option is not given, and the
419 configuration variable diff.wsErrorHighlight is not set, only
420 whitespace errors in new lines are highlighted. The whitespace
421 errors are colored with color.diff.whitespace.
422 --full-index
424 Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full pre- and
425 post-image blob object names on the "index" line when generating
426 patch format output.
427 --binary
429 In addition to --full-index, output a binary diff that can be
430 applied with git-apply.
431 --abbrev[=<n>]
433 Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in
434 diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show only a
435 partial prefix. This is independent of the --full-index option
436 above, which controls the diff-patch output format. Non default
437 number of digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
438 -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
440 Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
441 This serves two purposes:
442 It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a
444 file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
445 a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but
446 as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
447 insertion of everything new, and the number m controls this aspect
448 of the -B option (defaults to 60%). -B/70% specifies that less
449 than 30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to
450 consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch
451 will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
452 context lines).
453 When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as
455 the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that
456 disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number n controls
457 this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%). -B20% specifies
458 that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of
459 the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible
460 source of a rename to another file.
461 -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
463 Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a threshold on the
464 similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
465 file’s size). For example, -M90% means Git should consider a
466 delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t
467 changed. Without a % sign, the number is to be read as a fraction,
468 with a decimal point before it. I.e., -M5 becomes 0.5, and is thus
469 the same as -M50%. Similarly, -M05 is the same as -M5%. To limit
470 detection to exact renames, use -M100%. The default similarity
471 index is 50%.
472 -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
474 Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder. If
475 n is specified, it has the same meaning as for -M<n>.
476 --find-copies-harder
478 For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only if
479 the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset.
480 This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
481 for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for
482 large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C
483 option has the same effect.
484 -D, --irreversible-delete
486 Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
487 the diff between the preimage and /dev/null. The resulting patch is
488 not meant to be applied with patch or git apply; this is solely for
489 people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after the
490 change. In addition, the output obviously lacks enough information
491 to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually, hence the name of
492 the option.
493 When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion
495 part of a delete/create pair.
496 -l<num>
498 The -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n is the
499 number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents
500 rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy
501 targets exceeds the specified number.
502 --diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]
504 Select only files that are Added (A), Copied (C), Deleted (D),
505 Modified (M), Renamed (R), have their type (i.e. regular file,
506 symlink, submodule, ...) changed (T), are Unmerged (U), are Unknown
507 (X), or have had their pairing Broken (B). Any combination of the
508 filter characters (including none) can be used. When *
509 (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all paths are selected
510 if there is any file that matches other criteria in the comparison;
511 if there is no file that matches other criteria, nothing is
512 selected.
513 Also, these upper-case letters can be downcased to exclude. E.g.
515 --diff-filter=ad excludes added and deleted paths.
516 Note that not all diffs can feature all types. For instance, diffs
518 from the index to the working tree can never have Added entries
519 (because the set of paths included in the diff is limited by what
520 is in the index). Similarly, copied and renamed entries cannot
521 appear if detection for those types is disabled.
522 -S<string>
524 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
525 specified string (i.e. addition/deletion) in a file. Intended for
526 the scripter’s use.
527 It is useful when you’re looking for an exact block of code (like a
529 struct), and want to know the history of that block since it first
530 came into being: use the feature iteratively to feed the
531 interesting block in the preimage back into -S, and keep going
532 until you get the very first version of the block.
533 Binary files are searched as well.
535 -G<regex>
537 Look for differences whose patch text contains added/removed lines
538 that match <regex>.
539 To illustrate the difference between -S<regex> --pickaxe-regex and
541 -G<regex>, consider a commit with the following diff in the same
542 file:
543 + return !regexec(regexp, two->ptr, 1, ®match, 0);
545 ...
546 - hit = !regexec(regexp, mf2.ptr, 1, ®match, 0);
547 While git log -G"regexec\(regexp" will show this commit, git log
549 -S"regexec\(regexp" --pickaxe-regex will not (because the number of
550 occurrences of that string did not change).
551 Unless --text is supplied patches of binary files without a
553 textconv filter will be ignored.
554 See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more information.
556 --find-object=<object-id>
558 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
559 specified object. Similar to -S, just the argument is different in
560 that it doesn’t search for a specific string but for a specific
561 object id.
562 The object can be a blob or a submodule commit. It implies the -t
564 option in git-log to also find trees.
565 --pickaxe-all
567 When -S or -G finds a change, show all the changes in that
568 changeset, not just the files that contain the change in <string>.
569 --pickaxe-regex
571 Treat the <string> given to -S as an extended POSIX regular
572 expression to match.
573 -O<orderfile>
575 Control the order in which files appear in the output. This
576 overrides the diff.orderFile configuration variable (see git-
577 config(1)). To cancel diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.
578 The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in
580 <orderfile>. All files with pathnames that match the first pattern
581 are output first, all files with pathnames that match the second
582 pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on. All files
583 with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output last, as if
584 there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of the file. If
585 multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match the same pattern
586 but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each other
587 is the normal order.
588 <orderfile> is parsed as follows:
590 · Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators for
592 readability.
593 · Lines starting with a hash ("#") are ignored, so they can be
595 used for comments. Add a backslash ("\") to the beginning of
596 the pattern if it starts with a hash.
597 · Each other line contains a single pattern.
599 Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
601 fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also
602 matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
603 components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern "foo*bar"
604 matches "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not "foobarx".
605 -R
607 Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk
608 file to tree contents.
609 --relative[=<path>]
611 When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be told to
612 exclude changes outside the directory and show pathnames relative
613 to it with this option. When you are not in a subdirectory (e.g. in
614 a bare repository), you can name which subdirectory to make the
615 output relative to by giving a <path> as an argument.
616 -a, --text
618 Treat all files as text.
619 --ignore-cr-at-eol
621 Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.
622 --ignore-space-at-eol
624 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
625 -b, --ignore-space-change
627 Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace at
628 line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
629 whitespace characters to be equivalent.
630 -w, --ignore-all-space
632 Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
633 even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
634 --ignore-blank-lines
636 Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
637 --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
639 Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number of
640 lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other. Defaults
641 to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is unset.
642 -W, --function-context
644 Show whole surrounding functions of changes.
645 --exit-code
647 Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1). That is, it
648 exits with 1 if there were differences and 0 means no differences.
649 --quiet
651 Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
652 --ext-diff
654 Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
655 external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to use this
656 option with git-log(1) and friends.
657 --no-ext-diff
659 Disallow external diff drivers.
660 --textconv, --no-textconv
662 Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run when
663 comparing binary files. See gitattributes(5) for details. Because
664 textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the resulting
665 diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied. For
666 this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for git-
667 diff(1) and git-log(1), but not for git-format-patch(1) or diff
668 plumbing commands.
669 --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
671 Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
672 either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default.
673 Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either
674 contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the
675 commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any
676 settings of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
677 When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
678 they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for
679 modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work
680 tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the
681 superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using
682 "all" hides all changes to submodules.
683 --src-prefix=<prefix>
685 Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
686 --dst-prefix=<prefix>
688 Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
689 --no-prefix
691 Do not show any source or destination prefix.
692 --line-prefix=<prefix>
694 Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.
695 --ita-invisible-in-index
697 By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing
698 empty file in "git diff" and a new file in "git diff --cached".
699 This option makes the entry appear as a new file in "git diff" and
700 non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be reverted
701 with --ita-visible-in-index. Both options are experimental and
702 could be removed in future.
703 For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
705 gitdiffcore(7).
706 -1 --base, -2 --ours, -3 --theirs
708 Compare the working tree with the "base" version (stage #1), "our
709 branch" (stage #2) or "their branch" (stage #3). The index contains
710 these stages only for unmerged entries i.e. while resolving
711 conflicts. See git-read-tree(1) section "3-Way Merge" for detailed
712 information.
713 -0
715 Omit diff output for unmerged entries and just show "Unmerged". Can
716 be used only when comparing the working tree with the index.
717 <path>...
719 The <paths> parameters, when given, are used to limit the diff to
720 the named paths (you can give directory names and get diff for all
721 files under them).
722
724 The raw output format from "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree",
725 "git-diff-files" and "git diff --raw" are very similar.
726 These commands all compare two sets of things; what is compared
728 differs:
729 git-diff-index <tree-ish>
731 compares the <tree-ish> and the files on the filesystem.
732 git-diff-index --cached <tree-ish>
734 compares the <tree-ish> and the index.
735 git-diff-tree [-r] <tree-ish-1> <tree-ish-2> [<pattern>...]
737 compares the trees named by the two arguments.
738 git-diff-files [<pattern>...]
740 compares the index and the files on the filesystem.
741 The "git-diff-tree" command begins its output by printing the hash of
743 what is being compared. After that, all the commands print one output
744 line per changed file.
745 An output line is formatted this way:
747 in-place edit :100644 100644 bcd1234 0123456 M file0
749 copy-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 C68 file1 file2
750 rename-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 R86 file1 file3
751 create :000000 100644 0000000 1234567 A file4
752 delete :100644 000000 1234567 0000000 D file5
753 unmerged :000000 000000 0000000 0000000 U file6
754 That is, from the left to the right:
757 1. a colon.
759 2. mode for "src"; 000000 if creation or unmerged.
761 3. a space.
763 4. mode for "dst"; 000000 if deletion or unmerged.
765 5. a space.
767 6. sha1 for "src"; 0{40} if creation or unmerged.
769 7. a space.
771 8. sha1 for "dst"; 0{40} if creation, unmerged or "look at work tree".
773 9. a space.
775 10. status, followed by optional "score" number.
777 11. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used.
779 12. path for "src"
781 13. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used; only exists for C or R.
783 14. path for "dst"; only exists for C or R.
785 15. an LF or a NUL when -z option is used, to terminate the record.
787 Possible status letters are:
789 · A: addition of a file
791 · C: copy of a file into a new one
793 · D: deletion of a file
795 · M: modification of the contents or mode of a file
797 · R: renaming of a file
799 · T: change in the type of the file
801 · U: file is unmerged (you must complete the merge before it can be
803 committed)
804 · X: "unknown" change type (most probably a bug, please report it)
806 Status letters C and R are always followed by a score (denoting the
808 percentage of similarity between the source and target of the move or
809 copy). Status letter M may be followed by a score (denoting the
810 percentage of dissimilarity) for file rewrites.
811 <sha1> is shown as all 0’s if a file is new on the filesystem and it is
813 out of sync with the index.
814 Example:
816 :100644 100644 5be4a4a 0000000 M file.c
818 Without the -z option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
821 as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-
822 config(1)). Using -z the filename is output verbatim and the line is
823 terminated by a NUL byte.
824
826 "git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff --raw" can take -c or
827 --cc option to generate diff output also for merge commits. The output
828 differs from the format described above in the following way:
829 1. there is a colon for each parent
831 2. there are more "src" modes and "src" sha1
833 3. status is concatenated status characters for each parent
835 4. no optional "score" number
837 5. single path, only for "dst"
839 Example:
841 ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM describe.c
843 Note that combined diff lists only files which were modified from all
846 parents.
847
849 When "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree", or "git-diff-files" are run
850 with a -p option, "git diff" without the --raw option, or "git log"
851 with the "-p" option, they do not produce the output described above;
852 instead they produce a patch file. You can customize the creation of
853 such patches via the GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS
854 environment variables.
855 What the -p option produces is slightly different from the traditional
857 diff format:
858 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header that looks like this:
860 diff --git a/file1 b/file2
862 The a/ and b/ filenames are the same unless rename/copy is
864 involved. Especially, even for a creation or a deletion, /dev/null
865 is not used in place of the a/ or b/ filenames.
866 When rename/copy is involved, file1 and file2 show the name of the
868 source file of the rename/copy and the name of the file that
869 rename/copy produces, respectively.
870 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines:
872 old mode <mode>
874 new mode <mode>
875 deleted file mode <mode>
876 new file mode <mode>
877 copy from <path>
878 copy to <path>
879 rename from <path>
880 rename to <path>
881 similarity index <number>
882 dissimilarity index <number>
883 index <hash>..<hash> <mode>
884 File modes are printed as 6-digit octal numbers including the file
886 type and file permission bits.
887 Path names in extended headers do not include the a/ and b/
889 prefixes.
890 The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines, and the
892 dissimilarity index is the percentage of changed lines. It is a
893 rounded down integer, followed by a percent sign. The similarity
894 index value of 100% is thus reserved for two equal files, while
895 100% dissimilarity means that no line from the old file made it
896 into the new one.
897 The index line includes the SHA-1 checksum before and after the
899 change. The <mode> is included if the file mode does not change;
900 otherwise, separate lines indicate the old and the new mode.
901 3. Pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the
903 configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).
904 4. All the file1 files in the output refer to files before the commit,
906 and all the file2 files refer to files after the commit. It is
907 incorrect to apply each change to each file sequentially. For
908 example, this patch will swap a and b:
909 diff --git a/a b/b
911 rename from a
912 rename to b
913 diff --git a/b b/a
914 rename from b
915 rename to a
916
918 Any diff-generating command can take the -c or --cc option to produce a
919 combined diff when showing a merge. This is the default format when
920 showing merges with git-diff(1) or git-show(1). Note also that you can
921 give the -m option to any of these commands to force generation of
922 diffs with individual parents of a merge.
923 A combined diff format looks like this:
925 diff --combined describe.c
927 index fabadb8,cc95eb0..4866510
928 --- a/describe.c
929 +++ b/describe.c
930 @@@ -98,20 -98,12 +98,20 @@@
931 return (a_date > b_date) ? -1 : (a_date == b_date) ? 0 : 1;
932 }
933 - static void describe(char *arg)
935 -static void describe(struct commit *cmit, int last_one)
936 ++static void describe(char *arg, int last_one)
937 {
938 + unsigned char sha1[20];
939 + struct commit *cmit;
940 struct commit_list *list;
941 static int initialized = 0;
942 struct commit_name *n;
943 + if (get_sha1(arg, sha1) < 0)
945 + usage(describe_usage);
946 + cmit = lookup_commit_reference(sha1);
947 + if (!cmit)
948 + usage(describe_usage);
949 +
950 if (!initialized) {
951 initialized = 1;
952 for_each_ref(get_name);
953 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header, that looks like this (when
957 -c option is used):
958 diff --combined file
960 or like this (when --cc option is used):
962 diff --cc file
964 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines (this example
966 shows a merge with two parents):
967 index <hash>,<hash>..<hash>
969 mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode>
970 new file mode <mode>
971 deleted file mode <mode>,<mode>
972 The mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode> line appears only if at least one of
974 the <mode> is different from the rest. Extended headers with
975 information about detected contents movement (renames and copying
976 detection) are designed to work with diff of two <tree-ish> and are
977 not used by combined diff format.
978 3. It is followed by two-line from-file/to-file header
980 --- a/file
982 +++ b/file
983 Similar to two-line header for traditional unified diff format,
985 /dev/null is used to signal created or deleted files.
986 4. Chunk header format is modified to prevent people from accidentally
988 feeding it to patch -p1. Combined diff format was created for
989 review of merge commit changes, and was not meant for apply. The
990 change is similar to the change in the extended index header:
991 @@@ <from-file-range> <from-file-range> <to-file-range> @@@
993 There are (number of parents + 1) @ characters in the chunk header
995 for combined diff format.
996 Unlike the traditional unified diff format, which shows two files A and
998 B with a single column that has - (minus — appears in A but removed in
999 B), + (plus — missing in A but added to B), or " " (space — unchanged)
1000 prefix, this format compares two or more files file1, file2,... with
1001 one file X, and shows how X differs from each of fileN. One column for
1002 each of fileN is prepended to the output line to note how X’s line is
1003 different from it.
1004 A - character in the column N means that the line appears in fileN but
1006 it does not appear in the result. A + character in the column N means
1007 that the line appears in the result, and fileN does not have that line
1008 (in other words, the line was added, from the point of view of that
1009 parent).
1010 In the above example output, the function signature was changed from
1012 both files (hence two - removals from both file1 and file2, plus ++ to
1013 mean one line that was added does not appear in either file1 or file2).
1014 Also eight other lines are the same from file1 but do not appear in
1015 file2 (hence prefixed with +).
1016 When shown by git diff-tree -c, it compares the parents of a merge
1018 commit with the merge result (i.e. file1..fileN are the parents). When
1019 shown by git diff-files -c, it compares the two unresolved merge
1020 parents with the working tree file (i.e. file1 is stage 2 aka "our
1021 version", file2 is stage 3 aka "their version").
1022
1024 The --summary option describes newly added, deleted, renamed and copied
1025 files. The --stat option adds diffstat(1) graph to the output. These
1026 options can be combined with other options, such as -p, and are meant
1027 for human consumption.
1028 When showing a change that involves a rename or a copy, --stat output
1030 formats the pathnames compactly by combining common prefix and suffix
1031 of the pathnames. For example, a change that moves arch/i386/Makefile
1032 to arch/x86/Makefile while modifying 4 lines will be shown like this:
1033 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile | 4 +--
1035 The --numstat option gives the diffstat(1) information but is designed
1038 for easier machine consumption. An entry in --numstat output looks like
1039 this:
1040 1 2 README
1042 3 1 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile
1043 That is, from left to right:
1046 1. the number of added lines;
1048 2. a tab;
1050 3. the number of deleted lines;
1052 4. a tab;
1054 5. pathname (possibly with rename/copy information);
1056 6. a newline.
1058 When -z output option is in effect, the output is formatted this way:
1060 1 2 README NUL
1062 3 1 NUL arch/i386/Makefile NUL arch/x86/Makefile NUL
1063 That is:
1066 1. the number of added lines;
1068 2. a tab;
1070 3. the number of deleted lines;
1072 4. a tab;
1074 5. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1076 6. pathname in preimage;
1078 7. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1080 8. pathname in postimage (only exists if renamed/copied);
1082 9. a NUL.
1084 The extra NUL before the preimage path in renamed case is to allow
1086 scripts that read the output to tell if the current record being read
1087 is a single-path record or a rename/copy record without reading ahead.
1088 After reading added and deleted lines, reading up to NUL would yield
1089 the pathname, but if that is NUL, the record will show two paths.
1090
1092 Various ways to check your working tree
1093 $ git diff [1m(1)
1095 $ git diff --cached [1m(2)
1096 $ git diff HEAD [1m(3)
1097 1. Changes in the working tree not yet staged for the next commit.
1099 2. Changes between the index and your last commit; what you would
1100 be committing if you run "git commit" without "-a" option.
1101 3. Changes in the working tree since your last commit; what you
1102 would be committing if you run "git commit -a"
1103 Comparing with arbitrary commits
1105 $ git diff test [1m(1)
1107 $ git diff HEAD -- ./test [1m(2)
1108 $ git diff HEAD^ HEAD [1m(3)
1109 1. Instead of using the tip of the current branch, compare with the
1111 tip of "test" branch.
1112 2. Instead of comparing with the tip of "test" branch, compare with
1113 the tip of the current branch, but limit the comparison to the file
1114 "test".
1115 3. Compare the version before the last commit and the last commit.
1116 Comparing branches
1118 $ git diff topic master [1m(1)
1120 $ git diff topic..master [1m(2)
1121 $ git diff topic...master [1m(3)
1122 1. Changes between the tips of the topic and the master branches.
1124 2. Same as above.
1125 3. Changes that occurred on the master branch since when the topic
1126 branch was started off it.
1127 Limiting the diff output
1129 $ git diff --diff-filter=MRC [1m(1)
1131 $ git diff --name-status [1m(2)
1132 $ git diff arch/i386 include/asm-i386 [1m(3)
1133 1. Show only modification, rename, and copy, but not addition or
1135 deletion.
1136 2. Show only names and the nature of change, but not actual diff
1137 output.
1138 3. Limit diff output to named subtrees.
1139 Munging the diff output
1141 $ git diff --find-copies-harder -B -C [1m(1)
1143 $ git diff -R [1m(2)
1144 1. Spend extra cycles to find renames, copies and complete rewrites
1146 (very expensive).
1147 2. Output diff in reverse.
1148
1150 diff(1), git-difftool(1), git-log(1), gitdiffcore(7), git-format-
1151 patch(1), git-apply(1)
1152
1154 Part of the git(1) suite
1155Git 2.21.0 02/24/2019 GIT-DIFF(1)