1GIT-DIFF-FILES(1)                 Git Manual                 GIT-DIFF-FILES(1)
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NAME

6       git-diff-files - Compares files in the working tree and the index
7

SYNOPSIS

9       git diff-files [-q] [-0|-1|-2|-3|-c|--cc] [<common diff options>] [<path>...]
10

DESCRIPTION

12       Compares the files in the working tree and the index. When paths are
13       specified, compares only those named paths. Otherwise all entries in
14       the index are compared. The output format is the same as for git
15       diff-index and git diff-tree.
16

OPTIONS

18       -p, -u, --patch
19           Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
20
21       -s, --no-patch
22           Suppress diff output. Useful for commands like git show that show
23           the patch by default, or to cancel the effect of --patch.
24
25       -U<n>, --unified=<n>
26           Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual
27           three. Implies --patch.
28
29       --output=<file>
30           Output to a specific file instead of stdout.
31
32       --output-indicator-new=<char>, --output-indicator-old=<char>,
33       --output-indicator-context=<char>
34           Specify the character used to indicate new, old or context lines in
35           the generated patch. Normally they are +, - and ' ' respectively.
36
37       --raw
38           Generate the diff in raw format. This is the default.
39
40       --patch-with-raw
41           Synonym for -p --raw.
42
43       --indent-heuristic
44           Enable the heuristic that shifts diff hunk boundaries to make
45           patches easier to read. This is the default.
46
47       --no-indent-heuristic
48           Disable the indent heuristic.
49
50       --minimal
51           Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
52           produced.
53
54       --patience
55           Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
56
57       --histogram
58           Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.
59
60       --anchored=<text>
61           Generate a diff using the "anchored diff" algorithm.
62
63           This option may be specified more than once.
64
65           If a line exists in both the source and destination, exists only
66           once, and starts with this text, this algorithm attempts to prevent
67           it from appearing as a deletion or addition in the output. It uses
68           the "patience diff" algorithm internally.
69
70       --diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}
71           Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
72
73           default, myers
74               The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the
75               default.
76
77           minimal
78               Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
79               produced.
80
81           patience
82               Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
83
84           histogram
85               This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
86               low-occurrence common elements".
87
88           For instance, if you configured the diff.algorithm variable to a
89           non-default value and want to use the default one, then you have to
90           use --diff-algorithm=default option.
91
92       --stat[=<width>[,<name-width>[,<count>]]]
93           Generate a diffstat. By default, as much space as necessary will be
94           used for the filename part, and the rest for the graph part.
95           Maximum width defaults to terminal width, or 80 columns if not
96           connected to a terminal, and can be overridden by <width>. The
97           width of the filename part can be limited by giving another width
98           <name-width> after a comma. The width of the graph part can be
99           limited by using --stat-graph-width=<width> (affects all commands
100           generating a stat graph) or by setting diff.statGraphWidth=<width>
101           (does not affect git format-patch). By giving a third parameter
102           <count>, you can limit the output to the first <count> lines,
103           followed by ...  if there are more.
104
105           These parameters can also be set individually with
106           --stat-width=<width>, --stat-name-width=<name-width> and
107           --stat-count=<count>.
108
109       --compact-summary
110           Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
111           file creations or deletions ("new" or "gone", optionally "+l" if
112           it’s a symlink) and mode changes ("+x" or "-x" for adding or
113           removing executable bit respectively) in diffstat. The information
114           is put between the filename part and the graph part. Implies
115           --stat.
116
117       --numstat
118           Similar to --stat, but shows number of added and deleted lines in
119           decimal notation and pathname without abbreviation, to make it more
120           machine friendly. For binary files, outputs two - instead of saying
121           0 0.
122
123       --shortstat
124           Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
125           number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
126           lines.
127
128       -X[<param1,param2,...>], --dirstat[=<param1,param2,...>]
129           Output the distribution of relative amount of changes for each
130           sub-directory. The behavior of --dirstat can be customized by
131           passing it a comma separated list of parameters. The defaults are
132           controlled by the diff.dirstat configuration variable (see git-
133           config(1)). The following parameters are available:
134
135           changes
136               Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have
137               been removed from the source, or added to the destination. This
138               ignores the amount of pure code movements within a file. In
139               other words, rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much
140               as other changes. This is the default behavior when no
141               parameter is given.
142
143           lines
144               Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based
145               diff analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts. (For
146               binary files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary files
147               have no natural concept of lines). This is a more expensive
148               --dirstat behavior than the changes behavior, but it does count
149               rearranged lines within a file as much as other changes. The
150               resulting output is consistent with what you get from the other
151               --*stat options.
152
153           files
154               Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files
155               changed. Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat
156               analysis. This is the computationally cheapest --dirstat
157               behavior, since it does not have to look at the file contents
158               at all.
159
160           cumulative
161               Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory as
162               well. Note that when using cumulative, the sum of the
163               percentages reported may exceed 100%. The default
164               (non-cumulative) behavior can be specified with the
165               noncumulative parameter.
166
167           <limit>
168               An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by
169               default). Directories contributing less than this percentage of
170               the changes are not shown in the output.
171
172           Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring
173           directories with less than 10% of the total amount of changed
174           files, and accumulating child directory counts in the parent
175           directories: --dirstat=files,10,cumulative.
176
177       --cumulative
178           Synonym for --dirstat=cumulative
179
180       --dirstat-by-file[=<param1,param2>...]
181           Synonym for --dirstat=files,param1,param2...
182
183       --summary
184           Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
185           creations, renames and mode changes.
186
187       --patch-with-stat
188           Synonym for -p --stat.
189
190       -z
191           When --raw, --numstat, --name-only or --name-status has been given,
192           do not munge pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
193
194           Without this option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
195           as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see
196           git-config(1)).
197
198       --name-only
199           Show only names of changed files.
200
201       --name-status
202           Show only names and status of changed files. See the description of
203           the --diff-filter option on what the status letters mean.
204
205       --submodule[=<format>]
206           Specify how differences in submodules are shown. When specifying
207           --submodule=short the short format is used. This format just shows
208           the names of the commits at the beginning and end of the range.
209           When --submodule or --submodule=log is specified, the log format is
210           used. This format lists the commits in the range like git-
211           submodule(1) summary does. When --submodule=diff is specified, the
212           diff format is used. This format shows an inline diff of the
213           changes in the submodule contents between the commit range.
214           Defaults to diff.submodule or the short format if the config option
215           is unset.
216
217       --color[=<when>]
218           Show colored diff.  --color (i.e. without =<when>) is the same as
219           --color=always.  <when> can be one of always, never, or auto.
220
221       --no-color
222           Turn off colored diff. It is the same as --color=never.
223
224       --color-moved[=<mode>]
225           Moved lines of code are colored differently. The <mode> defaults to
226           no if the option is not given and to zebra if the option with no
227           mode is given. The mode must be one of:
228
229           no
230               Moved lines are not highlighted.
231
232           default
233               Is a synonym for zebra. This may change to a more sensible mode
234               in the future.
235
236           plain
237               Any line that is added in one location and was removed in
238               another location will be colored with color.diff.newMoved.
239               Similarly color.diff.oldMoved will be used for removed lines
240               that are added somewhere else in the diff. This mode picks up
241               any moved line, but it is not very useful in a review to
242               determine if a block of code was moved without permutation.
243
244           blocks
245               Blocks of moved text of at least 20 alphanumeric characters are
246               detected greedily. The detected blocks are painted using either
247               the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color. Adjacent blocks cannot be
248               told apart.
249
250           zebra
251               Blocks of moved text are detected as in blocks mode. The blocks
252               are painted using either the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color or
253               color.diff.{old,new}MovedAlternative. The change between the
254               two colors indicates that a new block was detected.
255
256           dimmed-zebra
257               Similar to zebra, but additional dimming of uninteresting parts
258               of moved code is performed. The bordering lines of two adjacent
259               blocks are considered interesting, the rest is uninteresting.
260               dimmed_zebra is a deprecated synonym.
261
262       --no-color-moved
263           Turn off move detection. This can be used to override configuration
264           settings. It is the same as --color-moved=no.
265
266       --color-moved-ws=<modes>
267           This configures how whitespace is ignored when performing the move
268           detection for --color-moved. These modes can be given as a comma
269           separated list:
270
271           no
272               Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection.
273
274           ignore-space-at-eol
275               Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
276
277           ignore-space-change
278               Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace
279               at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
280               whitespace characters to be equivalent.
281
282           ignore-all-space
283               Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores
284               differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
285               line has none.
286
287           allow-indentation-change
288               Initially ignore any whitespace in the move detection, then
289               group the moved code blocks only into a block if the change in
290               whitespace is the same per line. This is incompatible with the
291               other modes.
292
293       --no-color-moved-ws
294           Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection. This can
295           be used to override configuration settings. It is the same as
296           --color-moved-ws=no.
297
298       --word-diff[=<mode>]
299           Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words. By
300           default, words are delimited by whitespace; see --word-diff-regex
301           below. The <mode> defaults to plain, and must be one of:
302
303           color
304               Highlight changed words using only colors. Implies --color.
305
306           plain
307               Show words as [-removed-] and {+added+}. Makes no attempts to
308               escape the delimiters if they appear in the input, so the
309               output may be ambiguous.
310
311           porcelain
312               Use a special line-based format intended for script
313               consumption. Added/removed/unchanged runs are printed in the
314               usual unified diff format, starting with a +/-/` ` character at
315               the beginning of the line and extending to the end of the line.
316               Newlines in the input are represented by a tilde ~ on a line of
317               its own.
318
319           none
320               Disable word diff again.
321
322           Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to
323           highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
324
325       --word-diff-regex=<regex>
326           Use <regex> to decide what a word is, instead of considering runs
327           of non-whitespace to be a word. Also implies --word-diff unless it
328           was already enabled.
329
330           Every non-overlapping match of the <regex> is considered a word.
331           Anything between these matches is considered whitespace and
332           ignored(!) for the purposes of finding differences. You may want to
333           append |[^[:space:]] to your regular expression to make sure that
334           it matches all non-whitespace characters. A match that contains a
335           newline is silently truncated(!) at the newline.
336
337           For example, --word-diff-regex=.  will treat each character as a
338           word and, correspondingly, show differences character by character.
339
340           The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration
341           option, see gitattributes(5) or git-config(1). Giving it explicitly
342           overrides any diff driver or configuration setting. Diff drivers
343           override configuration settings.
344
345       --color-words[=<regex>]
346           Equivalent to --word-diff=color plus (if a regex was specified)
347           --word-diff-regex=<regex>.
348
349       --no-renames
350           Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives
351           the default to do so.
352
353       --[no-]rename-empty
354           Whether to use empty blobs as rename source.
355
356       --check
357           Warn if changes introduce conflict markers or whitespace errors.
358           What are considered whitespace errors is controlled by
359           core.whitespace configuration. By default, trailing whitespaces
360           (including lines that consist solely of whitespaces) and a space
361           character that is immediately followed by a tab character inside
362           the initial indent of the line are considered whitespace errors.
363           Exits with non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible
364           with --exit-code.
365
366       --ws-error-highlight=<kind>
367           Highlight whitespace errors in the context, old or new lines of the
368           diff. Multiple values are separated by comma, none resets previous
369           values, default reset the list to new and all is a shorthand for
370           old,new,context. When this option is not given, and the
371           configuration variable diff.wsErrorHighlight is not set, only
372           whitespace errors in new lines are highlighted. The whitespace
373           errors are colored with color.diff.whitespace.
374
375       --full-index
376           Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full pre- and
377           post-image blob object names on the "index" line when generating
378           patch format output.
379
380       --binary
381           In addition to --full-index, output a binary diff that can be
382           applied with git-apply. Implies --patch.
383
384       --abbrev[=<n>]
385           Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in
386           diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show the
387           shortest prefix that is at least <n> hexdigits long that uniquely
388           refers the object. In diff-patch output format, --full-index takes
389           higher precedence, i.e. if --full-index is specified, full blob
390           names will be shown regardless of --abbrev. Non default number of
391           digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
392
393       -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
394           Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
395           This serves two purposes:
396
397           It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a
398           file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
399           a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but
400           as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
401           insertion of everything new, and the number m controls this aspect
402           of the -B option (defaults to 60%).  -B/70% specifies that less
403           than 30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to
404           consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch
405           will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
406           context lines).
407
408           When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as
409           the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that
410           disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number n controls
411           this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%).  -B20% specifies
412           that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of
413           the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible
414           source of a rename to another file.
415
416       -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
417           Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a threshold on the
418           similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
419           file’s size). For example, -M90% means Git should consider a
420           delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t
421           changed. Without a % sign, the number is to be read as a fraction,
422           with a decimal point before it. I.e., -M5 becomes 0.5, and is thus
423           the same as -M50%. Similarly, -M05 is the same as -M5%. To limit
424           detection to exact renames, use -M100%. The default similarity
425           index is 50%.
426
427       -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
428           Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder. If
429           n is specified, it has the same meaning as for -M<n>.
430
431       --find-copies-harder
432           For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only if
433           the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset.
434           This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
435           for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for
436           large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C
437           option has the same effect.
438
439       -D, --irreversible-delete
440           Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
441           the diff between the preimage and /dev/null. The resulting patch is
442           not meant to be applied with patch or git apply; this is solely for
443           people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after the
444           change. In addition, the output obviously lacks enough information
445           to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually, hence the name of
446           the option.
447
448           When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion
449           part of a delete/create pair.
450
451       -l<num>
452           The -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n is the
453           number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents
454           rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy
455           targets exceeds the specified number.
456
457       --diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]
458           Select only files that are Added (A), Copied (C), Deleted (D),
459           Modified (M), Renamed (R), have their type (i.e. regular file,
460           symlink, submodule, ...) changed (T), are Unmerged (U), are Unknown
461           (X), or have had their pairing Broken (B). Any combination of the
462           filter characters (including none) can be used. When *
463           (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all paths are selected
464           if there is any file that matches other criteria in the comparison;
465           if there is no file that matches other criteria, nothing is
466           selected.
467
468           Also, these upper-case letters can be downcased to exclude. E.g.
469           --diff-filter=ad excludes added and deleted paths.
470
471           Note that not all diffs can feature all types. For instance, diffs
472           from the index to the working tree can never have Added entries
473           (because the set of paths included in the diff is limited by what
474           is in the index). Similarly, copied and renamed entries cannot
475           appear if detection for those types is disabled.
476
477       -S<string>
478           Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
479           specified string (i.e. addition/deletion) in a file. Intended for
480           the scripter’s use.
481
482           It is useful when you’re looking for an exact block of code (like a
483           struct), and want to know the history of that block since it first
484           came into being: use the feature iteratively to feed the
485           interesting block in the preimage back into -S, and keep going
486           until you get the very first version of the block.
487
488           Binary files are searched as well.
489
490       -G<regex>
491           Look for differences whose patch text contains added/removed lines
492           that match <regex>.
493
494           To illustrate the difference between -S<regex> --pickaxe-regex and
495           -G<regex>, consider a commit with the following diff in the same
496           file:
497
498               +    return frotz(nitfol, two->ptr, 1, 0);
499               ...
500               -    hit = frotz(nitfol, mf2.ptr, 1, 0);
501
502           While git log -G"frotz\(nitfol" will show this commit, git log
503           -S"frotz\(nitfol" --pickaxe-regex will not (because the number of
504           occurrences of that string did not change).
505
506           Unless --text is supplied patches of binary files without a
507           textconv filter will be ignored.
508
509           See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more information.
510
511       --find-object=<object-id>
512           Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
513           specified object. Similar to -S, just the argument is different in
514           that it doesn’t search for a specific string but for a specific
515           object id.
516
517           The object can be a blob or a submodule commit. It implies the -t
518           option in git-log to also find trees.
519
520       --pickaxe-all
521           When -S or -G finds a change, show all the changes in that
522           changeset, not just the files that contain the change in <string>.
523
524       --pickaxe-regex
525           Treat the <string> given to -S as an extended POSIX regular
526           expression to match.
527
528       -O<orderfile>
529           Control the order in which files appear in the output. This
530           overrides the diff.orderFile configuration variable (see git-
531           config(1)). To cancel diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.
532
533           The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in
534           <orderfile>. All files with pathnames that match the first pattern
535           are output first, all files with pathnames that match the second
536           pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on. All files
537           with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output last, as if
538           there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of the file. If
539           multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match the same pattern
540           but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each other
541           is the normal order.
542
543           <orderfile> is parsed as follows:
544
545           ·   Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators for
546               readability.
547
548           ·   Lines starting with a hash ("#") are ignored, so they can be
549               used for comments. Add a backslash ("\") to the beginning of
550               the pattern if it starts with a hash.
551
552           ·   Each other line contains a single pattern.
553
554           Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
555           fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also
556           matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
557           components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern "foo*bar"
558           matches "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not "foobarx".
559
560       -R
561           Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk
562           file to tree contents.
563
564       --relative[=<path>], --no-relative
565           When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be told to
566           exclude changes outside the directory and show pathnames relative
567           to it with this option. When you are not in a subdirectory (e.g. in
568           a bare repository), you can name which subdirectory to make the
569           output relative to by giving a <path> as an argument.
570           --no-relative can be used to countermand both diff.relative config
571           option and previous --relative.
572
573       -a, --text
574           Treat all files as text.
575
576       --ignore-cr-at-eol
577           Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.
578
579       --ignore-space-at-eol
580           Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
581
582       -b, --ignore-space-change
583           Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace at
584           line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
585           whitespace characters to be equivalent.
586
587       -w, --ignore-all-space
588           Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
589           even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
590
591       --ignore-blank-lines
592           Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
593
594       -I<regex>, --ignore-matching-lines=<regex>
595           Ignore changes whose all lines match <regex>. This option may be
596           specified more than once.
597
598       --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
599           Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number of
600           lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other. Defaults
601           to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is unset.
602
603       -W, --function-context
604           Show whole function as context lines for each change. The function
605           names are determined in the same way as git diff works out patch
606           hunk headers (see Defining a custom hunk-header in
607           gitattributes(5)).
608
609       --exit-code
610           Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1). That is, it
611           exits with 1 if there were differences and 0 means no differences.
612
613       --quiet
614           Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
615
616       --ext-diff
617           Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
618           external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to use this
619           option with git-log(1) and friends.
620
621       --no-ext-diff
622           Disallow external diff drivers.
623
624       --textconv, --no-textconv
625           Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run when
626           comparing binary files. See gitattributes(5) for details. Because
627           textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the resulting
628           diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied. For
629           this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for git-
630           diff(1) and git-log(1), but not for git-format-patch(1) or diff
631           plumbing commands.
632
633       --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
634           Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
635           either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default.
636           Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either
637           contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the
638           commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any
639           settings of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
640           When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
641           they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for
642           modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work
643           tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the
644           superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using
645           "all" hides all changes to submodules.
646
647       --src-prefix=<prefix>
648           Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
649
650       --dst-prefix=<prefix>
651           Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
652
653       --no-prefix
654           Do not show any source or destination prefix.
655
656       --line-prefix=<prefix>
657           Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.
658
659       --ita-invisible-in-index
660           By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing
661           empty file in "git diff" and a new file in "git diff --cached".
662           This option makes the entry appear as a new file in "git diff" and
663           non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be reverted
664           with --ita-visible-in-index. Both options are experimental and
665           could be removed in future.
666
667       For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
668       gitdiffcore(7).
669
670       -1 --base, -2 --ours, -3 --theirs, -0
671           Diff against the "base" version, "our branch" or "their branch"
672           respectively. With these options, diffs for merged entries are not
673           shown.
674
675           The default is to diff against our branch (-2) and the cleanly
676           resolved paths. The option -0 can be given to omit diff output for
677           unmerged entries and just show "Unmerged".
678
679       -c, --cc
680           This compares stage 2 (our branch), stage 3 (their branch) and the
681           working tree file and outputs a combined diff, similar to the way
682           diff-tree shows a merge commit with these flags.
683
684       -q
685           Remain silent even on nonexistent files
686

RAW OUTPUT FORMAT

688       The raw output format from "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree",
689       "git-diff-files" and "git diff --raw" are very similar.
690
691       These commands all compare two sets of things; what is compared
692       differs:
693
694       git-diff-index <tree-ish>
695           compares the <tree-ish> and the files on the filesystem.
696
697       git-diff-index --cached <tree-ish>
698           compares the <tree-ish> and the index.
699
700       git-diff-tree [-r] <tree-ish-1> <tree-ish-2> [<pattern>...]
701           compares the trees named by the two arguments.
702
703       git-diff-files [<pattern>...]
704           compares the index and the files on the filesystem.
705
706       The "git-diff-tree" command begins its output by printing the hash of
707       what is being compared. After that, all the commands print one output
708       line per changed file.
709
710       An output line is formatted this way:
711
712           in-place edit  :100644 100644 bcd1234 0123456 M file0
713           copy-edit      :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 C68 file1 file2
714           rename-edit    :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 R86 file1 file3
715           create         :000000 100644 0000000 1234567 A file4
716           delete         :100644 000000 1234567 0000000 D file5
717           unmerged       :000000 000000 0000000 0000000 U file6
718
719       That is, from the left to the right:
720
721        1. a colon.
722
723        2. mode for "src"; 000000 if creation or unmerged.
724
725        3. a space.
726
727        4. mode for "dst"; 000000 if deletion or unmerged.
728
729        5. a space.
730
731        6. sha1 for "src"; 0{40} if creation or unmerged.
732
733        7. a space.
734
735        8. sha1 for "dst"; 0{40} if creation, unmerged or "look at work tree".
736
737        9. a space.
738
739       10. status, followed by optional "score" number.
740
741       11. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used.
742
743       12. path for "src"
744
745       13. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used; only exists for C or R.
746
747       14. path for "dst"; only exists for C or R.
748
749       15. an LF or a NUL when -z option is used, to terminate the record.
750
751       Possible status letters are:
752
753       ·   A: addition of a file
754
755       ·   C: copy of a file into a new one
756
757       ·   D: deletion of a file
758
759       ·   M: modification of the contents or mode of a file
760
761       ·   R: renaming of a file
762
763       ·   T: change in the type of the file
764
765       ·   U: file is unmerged (you must complete the merge before it can be
766           committed)
767
768       ·   X: "unknown" change type (most probably a bug, please report it)
769
770       Status letters C and R are always followed by a score (denoting the
771       percentage of similarity between the source and target of the move or
772       copy). Status letter M may be followed by a score (denoting the
773       percentage of dissimilarity) for file rewrites.
774
775       <sha1> is shown as all 0’s if a file is new on the filesystem and it is
776       out of sync with the index.
777
778       Example:
779
780           :100644 100644 5be4a4a 0000000 M file.c
781
782       Without the -z option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
783       as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-
784       config(1)). Using -z the filename is output verbatim and the line is
785       terminated by a NUL byte.
786

DIFF FORMAT FOR MERGES

788       "git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff --raw" can take -c or
789       --cc option to generate diff output also for merge commits. The output
790       differs from the format described above in the following way:
791
792        1. there is a colon for each parent
793
794        2. there are more "src" modes and "src" sha1
795
796        3. status is concatenated status characters for each parent
797
798        4. no optional "score" number
799
800        5. tab-separated pathname(s) of the file
801
802       For -c and --cc, only the destination or final path is shown even if
803       the file was renamed on any side of history. With --combined-all-paths,
804       the name of the path in each parent is shown followed by the name of
805       the path in the merge commit.
806
807       Examples for -c and --cc without --combined-all-paths:
808
809           ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM       desc.c
810           ::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM       bar.sh
811           ::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR       phooey.c
812
813       Examples when --combined-all-paths added to either -c or --cc:
814
815           ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM       desc.c  desc.c  desc.c
816           ::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM       foo.sh  bar.sh  bar.sh
817           ::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR       fooey.c fuey.c  phooey.c
818
819       Note that combined diff lists only files which were modified from all
820       parents.
821

GENERATING PATCH TEXT WITH -P

823       Running git-diff(1), git-log(1), git-show(1), git-diff-index(1), git-
824       diff-tree(1), or git-diff-files(1) with the -p option produces patch
825       text. You can customize the creation of patch text via the
826       GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS environment variables (see
827       git(1)).
828
829       What the -p option produces is slightly different from the traditional
830       diff format:
831
832        1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header that looks like this:
833
834               diff --git a/file1 b/file2
835
836           The a/ and b/ filenames are the same unless rename/copy is
837           involved. Especially, even for a creation or a deletion, /dev/null
838           is not used in place of the a/ or b/ filenames.
839
840           When rename/copy is involved, file1 and file2 show the name of the
841           source file of the rename/copy and the name of the file that
842           rename/copy produces, respectively.
843
844        2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines:
845
846               old mode <mode>
847               new mode <mode>
848               deleted file mode <mode>
849               new file mode <mode>
850               copy from <path>
851               copy to <path>
852               rename from <path>
853               rename to <path>
854               similarity index <number>
855               dissimilarity index <number>
856               index <hash>..<hash> <mode>
857
858           File modes are printed as 6-digit octal numbers including the file
859           type and file permission bits.
860
861           Path names in extended headers do not include the a/ and b/
862           prefixes.
863
864           The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines, and the
865           dissimilarity index is the percentage of changed lines. It is a
866           rounded down integer, followed by a percent sign. The similarity
867           index value of 100% is thus reserved for two equal files, while
868           100% dissimilarity means that no line from the old file made it
869           into the new one.
870
871           The index line includes the blob object names before and after the
872           change. The <mode> is included if the file mode does not change;
873           otherwise, separate lines indicate the old and the new mode.
874
875        3. Pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the
876           configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).
877
878        4. All the file1 files in the output refer to files before the commit,
879           and all the file2 files refer to files after the commit. It is
880           incorrect to apply each change to each file sequentially. For
881           example, this patch will swap a and b:
882
883               diff --git a/a b/b
884               rename from a
885               rename to b
886               diff --git a/b b/a
887               rename from b
888               rename to a
889

COMBINED DIFF FORMAT

891       Any diff-generating command can take the -c or --cc option to produce a
892       combined diff when showing a merge. This is the default format when
893       showing merges with git-diff(1) or git-show(1). Note also that you can
894       give the -m option to any of these commands to force generation of
895       diffs with individual parents of a merge.
896
897       A "combined diff" format looks like this:
898
899           diff --combined describe.c
900           index fabadb8,cc95eb0..4866510
901           --- a/describe.c
902           +++ b/describe.c
903           @@@ -98,20 -98,12 +98,20 @@@
904                   return (a_date > b_date) ? -1 : (a_date == b_date) ? 0 : 1;
905             }
906
907           - static void describe(char *arg)
908            -static void describe(struct commit *cmit, int last_one)
909           ++static void describe(char *arg, int last_one)
910             {
911            +      unsigned char sha1[20];
912            +      struct commit *cmit;
913                   struct commit_list *list;
914                   static int initialized = 0;
915                   struct commit_name *n;
916
917            +      if (get_sha1(arg, sha1) < 0)
918            +              usage(describe_usage);
919            +      cmit = lookup_commit_reference(sha1);
920            +      if (!cmit)
921            +              usage(describe_usage);
922            +
923                   if (!initialized) {
924                           initialized = 1;
925                           for_each_ref(get_name);
926
927        1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header, that looks like this (when
928           the -c option is used):
929
930               diff --combined file
931
932           or like this (when the --cc option is used):
933
934               diff --cc file
935
936        2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines (this example
937           shows a merge with two parents):
938
939               index <hash>,<hash>..<hash>
940               mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode>
941               new file mode <mode>
942               deleted file mode <mode>,<mode>
943
944           The mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode> line appears only if at least one of
945           the <mode> is different from the rest. Extended headers with
946           information about detected contents movement (renames and copying
947           detection) are designed to work with diff of two <tree-ish> and are
948           not used by combined diff format.
949
950        3. It is followed by two-line from-file/to-file header
951
952               --- a/file
953               +++ b/file
954
955           Similar to two-line header for traditional unified diff format,
956           /dev/null is used to signal created or deleted files.
957
958           However, if the --combined-all-paths option is provided, instead of
959           a two-line from-file/to-file you get a N+1 line from-file/to-file
960           header, where N is the number of parents in the merge commit
961
962               --- a/file
963               --- a/file
964               --- a/file
965               +++ b/file
966
967           This extended format can be useful if rename or copy detection is
968           active, to allow you to see the original name of the file in
969           different parents.
970
971        4. Chunk header format is modified to prevent people from accidentally
972           feeding it to patch -p1. Combined diff format was created for
973           review of merge commit changes, and was not meant to be applied.
974           The change is similar to the change in the extended index header:
975
976               @@@ <from-file-range> <from-file-range> <to-file-range> @@@
977
978           There are (number of parents + 1) @ characters in the chunk header
979           for combined diff format.
980
981       Unlike the traditional unified diff format, which shows two files A and
982       B with a single column that has - (minus — appears in A but removed in
983       B), + (plus — missing in A but added to B), or " " (space — unchanged)
984       prefix, this format compares two or more files file1, file2,... with
985       one file X, and shows how X differs from each of fileN. One column for
986       each of fileN is prepended to the output line to note how X’s line is
987       different from it.
988
989       A - character in the column N means that the line appears in fileN but
990       it does not appear in the result. A + character in the column N means
991       that the line appears in the result, and fileN does not have that line
992       (in other words, the line was added, from the point of view of that
993       parent).
994
995       In the above example output, the function signature was changed from
996       both files (hence two - removals from both file1 and file2, plus ++ to
997       mean one line that was added does not appear in either file1 or file2).
998       Also eight other lines are the same from file1 but do not appear in
999       file2 (hence prefixed with +).
1000
1001       When shown by git diff-tree -c, it compares the parents of a merge
1002       commit with the merge result (i.e. file1..fileN are the parents). When
1003       shown by git diff-files -c, it compares the two unresolved merge
1004       parents with the working tree file (i.e. file1 is stage 2 aka "our
1005       version", file2 is stage 3 aka "their version").
1006

OTHER DIFF FORMATS

1008       The --summary option describes newly added, deleted, renamed and copied
1009       files. The --stat option adds diffstat(1) graph to the output. These
1010       options can be combined with other options, such as -p, and are meant
1011       for human consumption.
1012
1013       When showing a change that involves a rename or a copy, --stat output
1014       formats the pathnames compactly by combining common prefix and suffix
1015       of the pathnames. For example, a change that moves arch/i386/Makefile
1016       to arch/x86/Makefile while modifying 4 lines will be shown like this:
1017
1018           arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile    |   4 +--
1019
1020       The --numstat option gives the diffstat(1) information but is designed
1021       for easier machine consumption. An entry in --numstat output looks like
1022       this:
1023
1024           1       2       README
1025           3       1       arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile
1026
1027       That is, from left to right:
1028
1029        1. the number of added lines;
1030
1031        2. a tab;
1032
1033        3. the number of deleted lines;
1034
1035        4. a tab;
1036
1037        5. pathname (possibly with rename/copy information);
1038
1039        6. a newline.
1040
1041       When -z output option is in effect, the output is formatted this way:
1042
1043           1       2       README NUL
1044           3       1       NUL arch/i386/Makefile NUL arch/x86/Makefile NUL
1045
1046       That is:
1047
1048        1. the number of added lines;
1049
1050        2. a tab;
1051
1052        3. the number of deleted lines;
1053
1054        4. a tab;
1055
1056        5. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1057
1058        6. pathname in preimage;
1059
1060        7. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1061
1062        8. pathname in postimage (only exists if renamed/copied);
1063
1064        9. a NUL.
1065
1066       The extra NUL before the preimage path in renamed case is to allow
1067       scripts that read the output to tell if the current record being read
1068       is a single-path record or a rename/copy record without reading ahead.
1069       After reading added and deleted lines, reading up to NUL would yield
1070       the pathname, but if that is NUL, the record will show two paths.
1071

GIT

1073       Part of the git(1) suite
1074
1075
1076
1077Git 2.30.2                        2021-03-08                 GIT-DIFF-FILES(1)
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