1GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1) Git Manual GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1)
2
6 git-diff-index - Compare a tree to the working tree or index
7
9 git diff-index [-m] [--cached] [<common diff options>] <tree-ish> [<path>...]
10
12 Compares the content and mode of the blobs found in a tree object with
13 the corresponding tracked files in the working tree, or with the
14 corresponding paths in the index. When <path> arguments are present,
15 compares only paths matching those patterns. Otherwise all tracked
16 files are compared.
17
19 -p, -u, --patch
20 Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
21 -s, --no-patch
23 Suppress diff output. Useful for commands like git show that show
24 the patch by default, or to cancel the effect of --patch.
25 -U<n>, --unified=<n>
27 Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual
28 three. Implies --patch. Implies -p.
29 --output=<file>
31 Output to a specific file instead of stdout.
32 --output-indicator-new=<char>, --output-indicator-old=<char>,
34 --output-indicator-context=<char>
35 Specify the character used to indicate new, old or context lines in
36 the generated patch. Normally they are +, - and ' ' respectively.
37 --raw
39 Generate the diff in raw format. This is the default.
40 --patch-with-raw
42 Synonym for -p --raw.
43 --indent-heuristic
45 Enable the heuristic that shifts diff hunk boundaries to make
46 patches easier to read. This is the default.
47 --no-indent-heuristic
49 Disable the indent heuristic.
50 --minimal
52 Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
53 produced.
54 --patience
56 Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
57 --histogram
59 Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.
60 --anchored=<text>
62 Generate a diff using the "anchored diff" algorithm.
63 This option may be specified more than once.
65 If a line exists in both the source and destination, exists only
67 once, and starts with this text, this algorithm attempts to prevent
68 it from appearing as a deletion or addition in the output. It uses
69 the "patience diff" algorithm internally.
70 --diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}
72 Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
73 default, myers
75 The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the
76 default.
77 minimal
79 Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
80 produced.
81 patience
83 Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
84 histogram
86 This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
87 low-occurrence common elements".
88 For instance, if you configured the diff.algorithm variable to a
90 non-default value and want to use the default one, then you have to
91 use --diff-algorithm=default option.
92 --stat[=<width>[,<name-width>[,<count>]]]
94 Generate a diffstat. By default, as much space as necessary will be
95 used for the filename part, and the rest for the graph part.
96 Maximum width defaults to terminal width, or 80 columns if not
97 connected to a terminal, and can be overridden by <width>. The
98 width of the filename part can be limited by giving another width
99 <name-width> after a comma. The width of the graph part can be
100 limited by using --stat-graph-width=<width> (affects all commands
101 generating a stat graph) or by setting diff.statGraphWidth=<width>
102 (does not affect git format-patch). By giving a third parameter
103 <count>, you can limit the output to the first <count> lines,
104 followed by ... if there are more.
105 These parameters can also be set individually with
107 --stat-width=<width>, --stat-name-width=<name-width> and
108 --stat-count=<count>.
109 --compact-summary
111 Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
112 file creations or deletions ("new" or "gone", optionally "+l" if
113 it’s a symlink) and mode changes ("+x" or "-x" for adding or
114 removing executable bit respectively) in diffstat. The information
115 is put between the filename part and the graph part. Implies
116 --stat.
117 --numstat
119 Similar to --stat, but shows number of added and deleted lines in
120 decimal notation and pathname without abbreviation, to make it more
121 machine friendly. For binary files, outputs two - instead of saying
122 0 0.
123 --shortstat
125 Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
126 number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
127 lines.
128 -X[<param1,param2,...>], --dirstat[=<param1,param2,...>]
130 Output the distribution of relative amount of changes for each
131 sub-directory. The behavior of --dirstat can be customized by
132 passing it a comma separated list of parameters. The defaults are
133 controlled by the diff.dirstat configuration variable (see git-
134 config(1)). The following parameters are available:
135 changes
137 Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have
138 been removed from the source, or added to the destination. This
139 ignores the amount of pure code movements within a file. In
140 other words, rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much
141 as other changes. This is the default behavior when no
142 parameter is given.
143 lines
145 Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based
146 diff analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts. (For
147 binary files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary files
148 have no natural concept of lines). This is a more expensive
149 --dirstat behavior than the changes behavior, but it does count
150 rearranged lines within a file as much as other changes. The
151 resulting output is consistent with what you get from the other
152 --*stat options.
153 files
155 Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files
156 changed. Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat
157 analysis. This is the computationally cheapest --dirstat
158 behavior, since it does not have to look at the file contents
159 at all.
160 cumulative
162 Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory as
163 well. Note that when using cumulative, the sum of the
164 percentages reported may exceed 100%. The default
165 (non-cumulative) behavior can be specified with the
166 noncumulative parameter.
167 <limit>
169 An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by
170 default). Directories contributing less than this percentage of
171 the changes are not shown in the output.
172 Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring
174 directories with less than 10% of the total amount of changed
175 files, and accumulating child directory counts in the parent
176 directories: --dirstat=files,10,cumulative.
177 --cumulative
179 Synonym for --dirstat=cumulative
180 --dirstat-by-file[=<param1,param2>...]
182 Synonym for --dirstat=files,param1,param2...
183 --summary
185 Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
186 creations, renames and mode changes.
187 --patch-with-stat
189 Synonym for -p --stat.
190 -z
192 When --raw, --numstat, --name-only or --name-status has been given,
193 do not munge pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
194 Without this option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
196 as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see
197 git-config(1)).
198 --name-only
200 Show only names of changed files.
201 --name-status
203 Show only names and status of changed files. See the description of
204 the --diff-filter option on what the status letters mean.
205 --submodule[=<format>]
207 Specify how differences in submodules are shown. When specifying
208 --submodule=short the short format is used. This format just shows
209 the names of the commits at the beginning and end of the range.
210 When --submodule or --submodule=log is specified, the log format is
211 used. This format lists the commits in the range like git-
212 submodule(1) summary does. When --submodule=diff is specified, the
213 diff format is used. This format shows an inline diff of the
214 changes in the submodule contents between the commit range.
215 Defaults to diff.submodule or the short format if the config option
216 is unset.
217 --color[=<when>]
219 Show colored diff. --color (i.e. without =<when>) is the same as
220 --color=always. <when> can be one of always, never, or auto.
221 --no-color
223 Turn off colored diff. It is the same as --color=never.
224 --color-moved[=<mode>]
226 Moved lines of code are colored differently. The <mode> defaults to
227 no if the option is not given and to zebra if the option with no
228 mode is given. The mode must be one of:
229 no
231 Moved lines are not highlighted.
232 default
234 Is a synonym for zebra. This may change to a more sensible mode
235 in the future.
236 plain
238 Any line that is added in one location and was removed in
239 another location will be colored with color.diff.newMoved.
240 Similarly color.diff.oldMoved will be used for removed lines
241 that are added somewhere else in the diff. This mode picks up
242 any moved line, but it is not very useful in a review to
243 determine if a block of code was moved without permutation.
244 blocks
246 Blocks of moved text of at least 20 alphanumeric characters are
247 detected greedily. The detected blocks are painted using either
248 the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color. Adjacent blocks cannot be
249 told apart.
250 zebra
252 Blocks of moved text are detected as in blocks mode. The blocks
253 are painted using either the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color or
254 color.diff.{old,new}MovedAlternative. The change between the
255 two colors indicates that a new block was detected.
256 dimmed-zebra
258 Similar to zebra, but additional dimming of uninteresting parts
259 of moved code is performed. The bordering lines of two adjacent
260 blocks are considered interesting, the rest is uninteresting.
261 dimmed_zebra is a deprecated synonym.
262 --no-color-moved
264 Turn off move detection. This can be used to override configuration
265 settings. It is the same as --color-moved=no.
266 --color-moved-ws=<modes>
268 This configures how whitespace is ignored when performing the move
269 detection for --color-moved. These modes can be given as a comma
270 separated list:
271 no
273 Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection.
274 ignore-space-at-eol
276 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
277 ignore-space-change
279 Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace
280 at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
281 whitespace characters to be equivalent.
282 ignore-all-space
284 Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores
285 differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
286 line has none.
287 allow-indentation-change
289 Initially ignore any whitespace in the move detection, then
290 group the moved code blocks only into a block if the change in
291 whitespace is the same per line. This is incompatible with the
292 other modes.
293 --no-color-moved-ws
295 Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection. This can
296 be used to override configuration settings. It is the same as
297 --color-moved-ws=no.
298 --word-diff[=<mode>]
300 Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words. By
301 default, words are delimited by whitespace; see --word-diff-regex
302 below. The <mode> defaults to plain, and must be one of:
303 color
305 Highlight changed words using only colors. Implies --color.
306 plain
308 Show words as [-removed-] and {+added+}. Makes no attempts to
309 escape the delimiters if they appear in the input, so the
310 output may be ambiguous.
311 porcelain
313 Use a special line-based format intended for script
314 consumption. Added/removed/unchanged runs are printed in the
315 usual unified diff format, starting with a +/-/` ` character at
316 the beginning of the line and extending to the end of the line.
317 Newlines in the input are represented by a tilde ~ on a line of
318 its own.
319 none
321 Disable word diff again.
322 Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to
324 highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
325 --word-diff-regex=<regex>
327 Use <regex> to decide what a word is, instead of considering runs
328 of non-whitespace to be a word. Also implies --word-diff unless it
329 was already enabled.
330 Every non-overlapping match of the <regex> is considered a word.
332 Anything between these matches is considered whitespace and
333 ignored(!) for the purposes of finding differences. You may want to
334 append |[^[:space:]] to your regular expression to make sure that
335 it matches all non-whitespace characters. A match that contains a
336 newline is silently truncated(!) at the newline.
337 For example, --word-diff-regex=. will treat each character as a
339 word and, correspondingly, show differences character by character.
340 The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration
342 option, see gitattributes(5) or git-config(1). Giving it explicitly
343 overrides any diff driver or configuration setting. Diff drivers
344 override configuration settings.
345 --color-words[=<regex>]
347 Equivalent to --word-diff=color plus (if a regex was specified)
348 --word-diff-regex=<regex>.
349 --no-renames
351 Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives
352 the default to do so.
353 --[no-]rename-empty
355 Whether to use empty blobs as rename source.
356 --check
358 Warn if changes introduce conflict markers or whitespace errors.
359 What are considered whitespace errors is controlled by
360 core.whitespace configuration. By default, trailing whitespaces
361 (including lines that consist solely of whitespaces) and a space
362 character that is immediately followed by a tab character inside
363 the initial indent of the line are considered whitespace errors.
364 Exits with non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible
365 with --exit-code.
366 --ws-error-highlight=<kind>
368 Highlight whitespace errors in the context, old or new lines of the
369 diff. Multiple values are separated by comma, none resets previous
370 values, default reset the list to new and all is a shorthand for
371 old,new,context. When this option is not given, and the
372 configuration variable diff.wsErrorHighlight is not set, only
373 whitespace errors in new lines are highlighted. The whitespace
374 errors are colored with color.diff.whitespace.
375 --full-index
377 Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full pre- and
378 post-image blob object names on the "index" line when generating
379 patch format output.
380 --binary
382 In addition to --full-index, output a binary diff that can be
383 applied with git-apply. Implies --patch.
384 --abbrev[=<n>]
386 Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in
387 diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show only a
388 partial prefix. This is independent of the --full-index option
389 above, which controls the diff-patch output format. Non default
390 number of digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
391 -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
393 Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
394 This serves two purposes:
395 It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a
397 file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
398 a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but
399 as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
400 insertion of everything new, and the number m controls this aspect
401 of the -B option (defaults to 60%). -B/70% specifies that less
402 than 30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to
403 consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch
404 will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
405 context lines).
406 When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as
408 the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that
409 disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number n controls
410 this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%). -B20% specifies
411 that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of
412 the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible
413 source of a rename to another file.
414 -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
416 Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a threshold on the
417 similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
418 file’s size). For example, -M90% means Git should consider a
419 delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t
420 changed. Without a % sign, the number is to be read as a fraction,
421 with a decimal point before it. I.e., -M5 becomes 0.5, and is thus
422 the same as -M50%. Similarly, -M05 is the same as -M5%. To limit
423 detection to exact renames, use -M100%. The default similarity
424 index is 50%.
425 -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
427 Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder. If
428 n is specified, it has the same meaning as for -M<n>.
429 --find-copies-harder
431 For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only if
432 the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset.
433 This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
434 for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for
435 large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C
436 option has the same effect.
437 -D, --irreversible-delete
439 Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
440 the diff between the preimage and /dev/null. The resulting patch is
441 not meant to be applied with patch or git apply; this is solely for
442 people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after the
443 change. In addition, the output obviously lacks enough information
444 to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually, hence the name of
445 the option.
446 When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion
448 part of a delete/create pair.
449 -l<num>
451 The -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n is the
452 number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents
453 rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy
454 targets exceeds the specified number.
455 --diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]
457 Select only files that are Added (A), Copied (C), Deleted (D),
458 Modified (M), Renamed (R), have their type (i.e. regular file,
459 symlink, submodule, ...) changed (T), are Unmerged (U), are Unknown
460 (X), or have had their pairing Broken (B). Any combination of the
461 filter characters (including none) can be used. When *
462 (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all paths are selected
463 if there is any file that matches other criteria in the comparison;
464 if there is no file that matches other criteria, nothing is
465 selected.
466 Also, these upper-case letters can be downcased to exclude. E.g.
468 --diff-filter=ad excludes added and deleted paths.
469 Note that not all diffs can feature all types. For instance, diffs
471 from the index to the working tree can never have Added entries
472 (because the set of paths included in the diff is limited by what
473 is in the index). Similarly, copied and renamed entries cannot
474 appear if detection for those types is disabled.
475 -S<string>
477 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
478 specified string (i.e. addition/deletion) in a file. Intended for
479 the scripter’s use.
480 It is useful when you’re looking for an exact block of code (like a
482 struct), and want to know the history of that block since it first
483 came into being: use the feature iteratively to feed the
484 interesting block in the preimage back into -S, and keep going
485 until you get the very first version of the block.
486 Binary files are searched as well.
488 -G<regex>
490 Look for differences whose patch text contains added/removed lines
491 that match <regex>.
492 To illustrate the difference between -S<regex> --pickaxe-regex and
494 -G<regex>, consider a commit with the following diff in the same
495 file:
496 + return frotz(nitfol, two->ptr, 1, 0);
498 ...
499 - hit = frotz(nitfol, mf2.ptr, 1, 0);
500 While git log -G"frotz\(nitfol" will show this commit, git log
502 -S"frotz\(nitfol" --pickaxe-regex will not (because the number of
503 occurrences of that string did not change).
504 Unless --text is supplied patches of binary files without a
506 textconv filter will be ignored.
507 See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more information.
509 --find-object=<object-id>
511 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
512 specified object. Similar to -S, just the argument is different in
513 that it doesn’t search for a specific string but for a specific
514 object id.
515 The object can be a blob or a submodule commit. It implies the -t
517 option in git-log to also find trees.
518 --pickaxe-all
520 When -S or -G finds a change, show all the changes in that
521 changeset, not just the files that contain the change in <string>.
522 --pickaxe-regex
524 Treat the <string> given to -S as an extended POSIX regular
525 expression to match.
526 -O<orderfile>
528 Control the order in which files appear in the output. This
529 overrides the diff.orderFile configuration variable (see git-
530 config(1)). To cancel diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.
531 The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in
533 <orderfile>. All files with pathnames that match the first pattern
534 are output first, all files with pathnames that match the second
535 pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on. All files
536 with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output last, as if
537 there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of the file. If
538 multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match the same pattern
539 but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each other
540 is the normal order.
541 <orderfile> is parsed as follows:
543 · Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators for
545 readability.
546 · Lines starting with a hash ("#") are ignored, so they can be
548 used for comments. Add a backslash ("\") to the beginning of
549 the pattern if it starts with a hash.
550 · Each other line contains a single pattern.
552 Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
554 fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also
555 matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
556 components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern "foo*bar"
557 matches "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not "foobarx".
558 -R
560 Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk
561 file to tree contents.
562 --relative[=<path>]
564 When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be told to
565 exclude changes outside the directory and show pathnames relative
566 to it with this option. When you are not in a subdirectory (e.g. in
567 a bare repository), you can name which subdirectory to make the
568 output relative to by giving a <path> as an argument.
569 -a, --text
571 Treat all files as text.
572 --ignore-cr-at-eol
574 Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.
575 --ignore-space-at-eol
577 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
578 -b, --ignore-space-change
580 Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace at
581 line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
582 whitespace characters to be equivalent.
583 -w, --ignore-all-space
585 Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
586 even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
587 --ignore-blank-lines
589 Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
590 --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
592 Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number of
593 lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other. Defaults
594 to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is unset.
595 -W, --function-context
597 Show whole surrounding functions of changes.
598 --exit-code
600 Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1). That is, it
601 exits with 1 if there were differences and 0 means no differences.
602 --quiet
604 Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
605 --ext-diff
607 Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
608 external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to use this
609 option with git-log(1) and friends.
610 --no-ext-diff
612 Disallow external diff drivers.
613 --textconv, --no-textconv
615 Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run when
616 comparing binary files. See gitattributes(5) for details. Because
617 textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the resulting
618 diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied. For
619 this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for git-
620 diff(1) and git-log(1), but not for git-format-patch(1) or diff
621 plumbing commands.
622 --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
624 Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
625 either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default.
626 Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either
627 contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the
628 commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any
629 settings of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
630 When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
631 they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for
632 modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work
633 tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the
634 superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using
635 "all" hides all changes to submodules.
636 --src-prefix=<prefix>
638 Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
639 --dst-prefix=<prefix>
641 Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
642 --no-prefix
644 Do not show any source or destination prefix.
645 --line-prefix=<prefix>
647 Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.
648 --ita-invisible-in-index
650 By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing
651 empty file in "git diff" and a new file in "git diff --cached".
652 This option makes the entry appear as a new file in "git diff" and
653 non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be reverted
654 with --ita-visible-in-index. Both options are experimental and
655 could be removed in future.
656 For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
658 gitdiffcore(7).
659 <tree-ish>
661 The id of a tree object to diff against.
662 --cached
664 do not consider the on-disk file at all
665 -m
667 By default, files recorded in the index but not checked out are
668 reported as deleted. This flag makes git diff-index say that all
669 non-checked-out files are up to date.
670
672 The raw output format from "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree",
673 "git-diff-files" and "git diff --raw" are very similar.
674 These commands all compare two sets of things; what is compared
676 differs:
677 git-diff-index <tree-ish>
679 compares the <tree-ish> and the files on the filesystem.
680 git-diff-index --cached <tree-ish>
682 compares the <tree-ish> and the index.
683 git-diff-tree [-r] <tree-ish-1> <tree-ish-2> [<pattern>...]
685 compares the trees named by the two arguments.
686 git-diff-files [<pattern>...]
688 compares the index and the files on the filesystem.
689 The "git-diff-tree" command begins its output by printing the hash of
691 what is being compared. After that, all the commands print one output
692 line per changed file.
693 An output line is formatted this way:
695 in-place edit :100644 100644 bcd1234 0123456 M file0
697 copy-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 C68 file1 file2
698 rename-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 R86 file1 file3
699 create :000000 100644 0000000 1234567 A file4
700 delete :100644 000000 1234567 0000000 D file5
701 unmerged :000000 000000 0000000 0000000 U file6
702 That is, from the left to the right:
704 1. a colon.
706 2. mode for "src"; 000000 if creation or unmerged.
708 3. a space.
710 4. mode for "dst"; 000000 if deletion or unmerged.
712 5. a space.
714 6. sha1 for "src"; 0{40} if creation or unmerged.
716 7. a space.
718 8. sha1 for "dst"; 0{40} if creation, unmerged or "look at work tree".
720 9. a space.
722 10. status, followed by optional "score" number.
724 11. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used.
726 12. path for "src"
728 13. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used; only exists for C or R.
730 14. path for "dst"; only exists for C or R.
732 15. an LF or a NUL when -z option is used, to terminate the record.
734 Possible status letters are:
736 · A: addition of a file
738 · C: copy of a file into a new one
740 · D: deletion of a file
742 · M: modification of the contents or mode of a file
744 · R: renaming of a file
746 · T: change in the type of the file
748 · U: file is unmerged (you must complete the merge before it can be
750 committed)
751 · X: "unknown" change type (most probably a bug, please report it)
753 Status letters C and R are always followed by a score (denoting the
755 percentage of similarity between the source and target of the move or
756 copy). Status letter M may be followed by a score (denoting the
757 percentage of dissimilarity) for file rewrites.
758 <sha1> is shown as all 0’s if a file is new on the filesystem and it is
760 out of sync with the index.
761 Example:
763 :100644 100644 5be4a4a 0000000 M file.c
765 Without the -z option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
767 as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-
768 config(1)). Using -z the filename is output verbatim and the line is
769 terminated by a NUL byte.
770
772 "git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff --raw" can take -c or
773 --cc option to generate diff output also for merge commits. The output
774 differs from the format described above in the following way:
775 1. there is a colon for each parent
777 2. there are more "src" modes and "src" sha1
779 3. status is concatenated status characters for each parent
781 4. no optional "score" number
783 5. tab-separated pathname(s) of the file
785 For -c and --cc, only the destination or final path is shown even if
787 the file was renamed on any side of history. With --combined-all-paths,
788 the name of the path in each parent is shown followed by the name of
789 the path in the merge commit.
790 Examples for -c and --cc without --combined-all-paths:
792 ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM desc.c
794 ::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM bar.sh
795 ::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR phooey.c
796 Examples when --combined-all-paths added to either -c or --cc:
798 ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM desc.c desc.c desc.c
800 ::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM foo.sh bar.sh bar.sh
801 ::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR fooey.c fuey.c phooey.c
802 Note that combined diff lists only files which were modified from all
804 parents.
805
807 Running git-diff(1), git-log(1), git-show(1), git-diff-index(1), git-
808 diff-tree(1), or git-diff-files(1) with the -p option produces patch
809 text. You can customize the creation of patch text via the
810 GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS environment variables.
811 What the -p option produces is slightly different from the traditional
813 diff format:
814 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header that looks like this:
816 diff --git a/file1 b/file2
818 The a/ and b/ filenames are the same unless rename/copy is
820 involved. Especially, even for a creation or a deletion, /dev/null
821 is not used in place of the a/ or b/ filenames.
822 When rename/copy is involved, file1 and file2 show the name of the
824 source file of the rename/copy and the name of the file that
825 rename/copy produces, respectively.
826 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines:
828 old mode <mode>
830 new mode <mode>
831 deleted file mode <mode>
832 new file mode <mode>
833 copy from <path>
834 copy to <path>
835 rename from <path>
836 rename to <path>
837 similarity index <number>
838 dissimilarity index <number>
839 index <hash>..<hash> <mode>
840 File modes are printed as 6-digit octal numbers including the file
842 type and file permission bits.
843 Path names in extended headers do not include the a/ and b/
845 prefixes.
846 The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines, and the
848 dissimilarity index is the percentage of changed lines. It is a
849 rounded down integer, followed by a percent sign. The similarity
850 index value of 100% is thus reserved for two equal files, while
851 100% dissimilarity means that no line from the old file made it
852 into the new one.
853 The index line includes the blob object names before and after the
855 change. The <mode> is included if the file mode does not change;
856 otherwise, separate lines indicate the old and the new mode.
857 3. Pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the
859 configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).
860 4. All the file1 files in the output refer to files before the commit,
862 and all the file2 files refer to files after the commit. It is
863 incorrect to apply each change to each file sequentially. For
864 example, this patch will swap a and b:
865 diff --git a/a b/b
867 rename from a
868 rename to b
869 diff --git a/b b/a
870 rename from b
871 rename to a
872
874 Any diff-generating command can take the -c or --cc option to produce a
875 combined diff when showing a merge. This is the default format when
876 showing merges with git-diff(1) or git-show(1). Note also that you can
877 give the -m option to any of these commands to force generation of
878 diffs with individual parents of a merge.
879 A "combined diff" format looks like this:
881 diff --combined describe.c
883 index fabadb8,cc95eb0..4866510
884 --- a/describe.c
885 +++ b/describe.c
886 @@@ -98,20 -98,12 +98,20 @@@
887 return (a_date > b_date) ? -1 : (a_date == b_date) ? 0 : 1;
888 }
889 - static void describe(char *arg)
891 -static void describe(struct commit *cmit, int last_one)
892 ++static void describe(char *arg, int last_one)
893 {
894 + unsigned char sha1[20];
895 + struct commit *cmit;
896 struct commit_list *list;
897 static int initialized = 0;
898 struct commit_name *n;
899 + if (get_sha1(arg, sha1) < 0)
901 + usage(describe_usage);
902 + cmit = lookup_commit_reference(sha1);
903 + if (!cmit)
904 + usage(describe_usage);
905 +
906 if (!initialized) {
907 initialized = 1;
908 for_each_ref(get_name);
909 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header, that looks like this (when
911 the -c option is used):
912 diff --combined file
914 or like this (when the --cc option is used):
916 diff --cc file
918 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines (this example
920 shows a merge with two parents):
921 index <hash>,<hash>..<hash>
923 mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode>
924 new file mode <mode>
925 deleted file mode <mode>,<mode>
926 The mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode> line appears only if at least one of
928 the <mode> is different from the rest. Extended headers with
929 information about detected contents movement (renames and copying
930 detection) are designed to work with diff of two <tree-ish> and are
931 not used by combined diff format.
932 3. It is followed by two-line from-file/to-file header
934 --- a/file
936 +++ b/file
937 Similar to two-line header for traditional unified diff format,
939 /dev/null is used to signal created or deleted files.
940 However, if the --combined-all-paths option is provided, instead of
942 a two-line from-file/to-file you get a N+1 line from-file/to-file
943 header, where N is the number of parents in the merge commit
944 --- a/file
946 --- a/file
947 --- a/file
948 +++ b/file
949 This extended format can be useful if rename or copy detection is
951 active, to allow you to see the original name of the file in
952 different parents.
953 4. Chunk header format is modified to prevent people from accidentally
955 feeding it to patch -p1. Combined diff format was created for
956 review of merge commit changes, and was not meant to be applied.
957 The change is similar to the change in the extended index header:
958 @@@ <from-file-range> <from-file-range> <to-file-range> @@@
960 There are (number of parents + 1) @ characters in the chunk header
962 for combined diff format.
963 Unlike the traditional unified diff format, which shows two files A and
965 B with a single column that has - (minus — appears in A but removed in
966 B), + (plus — missing in A but added to B), or " " (space — unchanged)
967 prefix, this format compares two or more files file1, file2,... with
968 one file X, and shows how X differs from each of fileN. One column for
969 each of fileN is prepended to the output line to note how X’s line is
970 different from it.
971 A - character in the column N means that the line appears in fileN but
973 it does not appear in the result. A + character in the column N means
974 that the line appears in the result, and fileN does not have that line
975 (in other words, the line was added, from the point of view of that
976 parent).
977 In the above example output, the function signature was changed from
979 both files (hence two - removals from both file1 and file2, plus ++ to
980 mean one line that was added does not appear in either file1 or file2).
981 Also eight other lines are the same from file1 but do not appear in
982 file2 (hence prefixed with +).
983 When shown by git diff-tree -c, it compares the parents of a merge
985 commit with the merge result (i.e. file1..fileN are the parents). When
986 shown by git diff-files -c, it compares the two unresolved merge
987 parents with the working tree file (i.e. file1 is stage 2 aka "our
988 version", file2 is stage 3 aka "their version").
989
991 The --summary option describes newly added, deleted, renamed and copied
992 files. The --stat option adds diffstat(1) graph to the output. These
993 options can be combined with other options, such as -p, and are meant
994 for human consumption.
995 When showing a change that involves a rename or a copy, --stat output
997 formats the pathnames compactly by combining common prefix and suffix
998 of the pathnames. For example, a change that moves arch/i386/Makefile
999 to arch/x86/Makefile while modifying 4 lines will be shown like this:
1000 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile | 4 +--
1002 The --numstat option gives the diffstat(1) information but is designed
1004 for easier machine consumption. An entry in --numstat output looks like
1005 this:
1006 1 2 README
1008 3 1 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile
1009 That is, from left to right:
1011 1. the number of added lines;
1013 2. a tab;
1015 3. the number of deleted lines;
1017 4. a tab;
1019 5. pathname (possibly with rename/copy information);
1021 6. a newline.
1023 When -z output option is in effect, the output is formatted this way:
1025 1 2 README NUL
1027 3 1 NUL arch/i386/Makefile NUL arch/x86/Makefile NUL
1028 That is:
1030 1. the number of added lines;
1032 2. a tab;
1034 3. the number of deleted lines;
1036 4. a tab;
1038 5. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1040 6. pathname in preimage;
1042 7. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1044 8. pathname in postimage (only exists if renamed/copied);
1046 9. a NUL.
1048 The extra NUL before the preimage path in renamed case is to allow
1050 scripts that read the output to tell if the current record being read
1051 is a single-path record or a rename/copy record without reading ahead.
1052 After reading added and deleted lines, reading up to NUL would yield
1053 the pathname, but if that is NUL, the record will show two paths.
1054
1056 You can choose whether you want to trust the index file entirely (using
1057 the --cached flag) or ask the diff logic to show any files that don’t
1058 match the stat state as being "tentatively changed". Both of these
1059 operations are very useful indeed.
1060
1062 If --cached is specified, it allows you to ask:
1063 show me the differences between HEAD and the current index
1065 contents (the ones I'd write using 'git write-tree')
1066 For example, let’s say that you have worked on your working directory,
1068 updated some files in the index and are ready to commit. You want to
1069 see exactly what you are going to commit, without having to write a new
1070 tree object and compare it that way, and to do that, you just do
1071 git diff-index --cached HEAD
1073 Example: let’s say I had renamed commit.c to git-commit.c, and I had
1075 done an update-index to make that effective in the index file. git
1076 diff-files wouldn’t show anything at all, since the index file matches
1077 my working directory. But doing a git diff-index does:
1078 torvalds@ppc970:~/git> git diff-index --cached HEAD
1080 -100644 blob 4161aecc6700a2eb579e842af0b7f22b98443f74 commit.c
1081 +100644 blob 4161aecc6700a2eb579e842af0b7f22b98443f74 git-commit.c
1082 You can see easily that the above is a rename.
1084 In fact, git diff-index --cached should always be entirely equivalent
1086 to actually doing a git write-tree and comparing that. Except this one
1087 is much nicer for the case where you just want to check where you are.
1088 So doing a git diff-index --cached is basically very useful when you
1090 are asking yourself "what have I already marked for being committed,
1091 and what’s the difference to a previous tree".
1092
1094 The "non-cached" mode takes a different approach, and is potentially
1095 the more useful of the two in that what it does can’t be emulated with
1096 a git write-tree + git diff-tree. Thus that’s the default mode. The
1097 non-cached version asks the question:
1098 show me the differences between HEAD and the currently checked out
1100 tree - index contents _and_ files that aren't up to date
1101 which is obviously a very useful question too, since that tells you
1103 what you could commit. Again, the output matches the git diff-tree -r
1104 output to a tee, but with a twist.
1105 The twist is that if some file doesn’t match the index, we don’t have a
1107 backing store thing for it, and we use the magic "all-zero" sha1 to
1108 show that. So let’s say that you have edited kernel/sched.c, but have
1109 not actually done a git update-index on it yet - there is no "object"
1110 associated with the new state, and you get:
1111 torvalds@ppc970:~/v2.6/linux> git diff-index --abbrev HEAD
1113 :100644 100664 7476bb... 000000... kernel/sched.c
1114 i.e., it shows that the tree has changed, and that kernel/sched.c is
1116 not up to date and may contain new stuff. The all-zero sha1 means that
1117 to get the real diff, you need to look at the object in the working
1118 directory directly rather than do an object-to-object diff.
1119 Note
1121 As with other commands of this type, git diff-index does not
1122 actually look at the contents of the file at all. So maybe
1123 kernel/sched.c hasn’t actually changed, and it’s just that you
1124 touched it. In either case, it’s a note that you need to git
1125 update-index it to make the index be in sync.
1126 Note
1128 You can have a mixture of files show up as "has been updated" and
1129 "is still dirty in the working directory" together. You can always
1130 tell which file is in which state, since the "has been updated"
1131 ones show a valid sha1, and the "not in sync with the index" ones
1132 will always have the special all-zero sha1.
1133
1135 Part of the git(1) suite
1136Git 2.26.2 2020-04-20 GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1)