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

6       git-diff-index - Compare a tree to the working tree or index
7

SYNOPSIS

9       git diff-index [-m] [--cached] [--merge-base] [<common diff options>] <tree-ish> [<path>...]
10

DESCRIPTION

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

OPTIONS

19       -p, -u, --patch
20           Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
21
22       -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
26       -U<n>, --unified=<n>
27           Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual
28           three. Implies --patch.
29
30       --output=<file>
31           Output to a specific file instead of stdout.
32
33       --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
38       --raw
39           Generate the diff in raw format. This is the default.
40
41       --patch-with-raw
42           Synonym for -p --raw.
43
44       --indent-heuristic
45           Enable the heuristic that shifts diff hunk boundaries to make
46           patches easier to read. This is the default.
47
48       --no-indent-heuristic
49           Disable the indent heuristic.
50
51       --minimal
52           Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
53           produced.
54
55       --patience
56           Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
57
58       --histogram
59           Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.
60
61       --anchored=<text>
62           Generate a diff using the "anchored diff" algorithm.
63
64           This option may be specified more than once.
65
66           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
71       --diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}
72           Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
73
74           default, myers
75               The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the
76               default.
77
78           minimal
79               Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
80               produced.
81
82           patience
83               Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
84
85           histogram
86               This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
87               low-occurrence common elements".
88
89           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
93       --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
106           These parameters can also be set individually with
107           --stat-width=<width>, --stat-name-width=<name-width> and
108           --stat-count=<count>.
109
110       --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
118       --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
124       --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
129       -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
136           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
144           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
154           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
161           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
168           <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
173           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
178       --cumulative
179           Synonym for --dirstat=cumulative
180
181       --dirstat-by-file[=<param1,param2>...]
182           Synonym for --dirstat=files,param1,param2...
183
184       --summary
185           Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
186           creations, renames and mode changes.
187
188       --patch-with-stat
189           Synonym for -p --stat.
190
191       -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
195           Without this option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
196           as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see
197           git-config(1)).
198
199       --name-only
200           Show only names of changed files.
201
202       --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
206       --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
218       --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
222       --no-color
223           Turn off colored diff. It is the same as --color=never.
224
225       --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
230           no
231               Moved lines are not highlighted.
232
233           default
234               Is a synonym for zebra. This may change to a more sensible mode
235               in the future.
236
237           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
245           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
251           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
257           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
263       --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
267       --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
272           no
273               Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection.
274
275           ignore-space-at-eol
276               Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
277
278           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
283           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
288           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
294       --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
299       --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
304           color
305               Highlight changed words using only colors. Implies --color.
306
307           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
312           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
320           none
321               Disable word diff again.
322
323           Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to
324           highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
325
326       --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
331           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
338           For example, --word-diff-regex=.  will treat each character as a
339           word and, correspondingly, show differences character by character.
340
341           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
346       --color-words[=<regex>]
347           Equivalent to --word-diff=color plus (if a regex was specified)
348           --word-diff-regex=<regex>.
349
350       --no-renames
351           Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives
352           the default to do so.
353
354       --[no-]rename-empty
355           Whether to use empty blobs as rename source.
356
357       --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
367       --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
376       --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
381       --binary
382           In addition to --full-index, output a binary diff that can be
383           applied with git-apply. Implies --patch.
384
385       --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 the
388           shortest prefix that is at least <n> hexdigits long that uniquely
389           refers the object. In diff-patch output format, --full-index takes
390           higher precedence, i.e. if --full-index is specified, full blob
391           names will be shown regardless of --abbrev. Non default number of
392           digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
393
394       -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
395           Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
396           This serves two purposes:
397
398           It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a
399           file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
400           a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but
401           as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
402           insertion of everything new, and the number m controls this aspect
403           of the -B option (defaults to 60%).  -B/70% specifies that less
404           than 30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to
405           consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch
406           will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
407           context lines).
408
409           When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as
410           the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that
411           disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number n controls
412           this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%).  -B20% specifies
413           that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of
414           the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible
415           source of a rename to another file.
416
417       -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
418           Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a threshold on the
419           similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
420           file’s size). For example, -M90% means Git should consider a
421           delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t
422           changed. Without a % sign, the number is to be read as a fraction,
423           with a decimal point before it. I.e., -M5 becomes 0.5, and is thus
424           the same as -M50%. Similarly, -M05 is the same as -M5%. To limit
425           detection to exact renames, use -M100%. The default similarity
426           index is 50%.
427
428       -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
429           Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder. If
430           n is specified, it has the same meaning as for -M<n>.
431
432       --find-copies-harder
433           For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only if
434           the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset.
435           This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
436           for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for
437           large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C
438           option has the same effect.
439
440       -D, --irreversible-delete
441           Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
442           the diff between the preimage and /dev/null. The resulting patch is
443           not meant to be applied with patch or git apply; this is solely for
444           people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after the
445           change. In addition, the output obviously lacks enough information
446           to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually, hence the name of
447           the option.
448
449           When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion
450           part of a delete/create pair.
451
452       -l<num>
453           The -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n is the
454           number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents
455           rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy
456           targets exceeds the specified number.
457
458       --diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]
459           Select only files that are Added (A), Copied (C), Deleted (D),
460           Modified (M), Renamed (R), have their type (i.e. regular file,
461           symlink, submodule, ...) changed (T), are Unmerged (U), are Unknown
462           (X), or have had their pairing Broken (B). Any combination of the
463           filter characters (including none) can be used. When *
464           (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all paths are selected
465           if there is any file that matches other criteria in the comparison;
466           if there is no file that matches other criteria, nothing is
467           selected.
468
469           Also, these upper-case letters can be downcased to exclude. E.g.
470           --diff-filter=ad excludes added and deleted paths.
471
472           Note that not all diffs can feature all types. For instance, diffs
473           from the index to the working tree can never have Added entries
474           (because the set of paths included in the diff is limited by what
475           is in the index). Similarly, copied and renamed entries cannot
476           appear if detection for those types is disabled.
477
478       -S<string>
479           Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
480           specified string (i.e. addition/deletion) in a file. Intended for
481           the scripter’s use.
482
483           It is useful when you’re looking for an exact block of code (like a
484           struct), and want to know the history of that block since it first
485           came into being: use the feature iteratively to feed the
486           interesting block in the preimage back into -S, and keep going
487           until you get the very first version of the block.
488
489           Binary files are searched as well.
490
491       -G<regex>
492           Look for differences whose patch text contains added/removed lines
493           that match <regex>.
494
495           To illustrate the difference between -S<regex> --pickaxe-regex and
496           -G<regex>, consider a commit with the following diff in the same
497           file:
498
499               +    return frotz(nitfol, two->ptr, 1, 0);
500               ...
501               -    hit = frotz(nitfol, mf2.ptr, 1, 0);
502
503           While git log -G"frotz\(nitfol" will show this commit, git log
504           -S"frotz\(nitfol" --pickaxe-regex will not (because the number of
505           occurrences of that string did not change).
506
507           Unless --text is supplied patches of binary files without a
508           textconv filter will be ignored.
509
510           See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more information.
511
512       --find-object=<object-id>
513           Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
514           specified object. Similar to -S, just the argument is different in
515           that it doesn’t search for a specific string but for a specific
516           object id.
517
518           The object can be a blob or a submodule commit. It implies the -t
519           option in git-log to also find trees.
520
521       --pickaxe-all
522           When -S or -G finds a change, show all the changes in that
523           changeset, not just the files that contain the change in <string>.
524
525       --pickaxe-regex
526           Treat the <string> given to -S as an extended POSIX regular
527           expression to match.
528
529       -O<orderfile>
530           Control the order in which files appear in the output. This
531           overrides the diff.orderFile configuration variable (see git-
532           config(1)). To cancel diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.
533
534           The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in
535           <orderfile>. All files with pathnames that match the first pattern
536           are output first, all files with pathnames that match the second
537           pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on. All files
538           with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output last, as if
539           there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of the file. If
540           multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match the same pattern
541           but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each other
542           is the normal order.
543
544           <orderfile> is parsed as follows:
545
546           ·   Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators for
547               readability.
548
549           ·   Lines starting with a hash ("#") are ignored, so they can be
550               used for comments. Add a backslash ("\") to the beginning of
551               the pattern if it starts with a hash.
552
553           ·   Each other line contains a single pattern.
554
555           Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
556           fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also
557           matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
558           components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern "foo*bar"
559           matches "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not "foobarx".
560
561       -R
562           Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk
563           file to tree contents.
564
565       --relative[=<path>], --no-relative
566           When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be told to
567           exclude changes outside the directory and show pathnames relative
568           to it with this option. When you are not in a subdirectory (e.g. in
569           a bare repository), you can name which subdirectory to make the
570           output relative to by giving a <path> as an argument.
571           --no-relative can be used to countermand both diff.relative config
572           option and previous --relative.
573
574       -a, --text
575           Treat all files as text.
576
577       --ignore-cr-at-eol
578           Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.
579
580       --ignore-space-at-eol
581           Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
582
583       -b, --ignore-space-change
584           Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace at
585           line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
586           whitespace characters to be equivalent.
587
588       -w, --ignore-all-space
589           Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
590           even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
591
592       --ignore-blank-lines
593           Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
594
595       -I<regex>, --ignore-matching-lines=<regex>
596           Ignore changes whose all lines match <regex>. This option may be
597           specified more than once.
598
599       --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
600           Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number of
601           lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other. Defaults
602           to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is unset.
603
604       -W, --function-context
605           Show whole function as context lines for each change. The function
606           names are determined in the same way as git diff works out patch
607           hunk headers (see Defining a custom hunk-header in
608           gitattributes(5)).
609
610       --exit-code
611           Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1). That is, it
612           exits with 1 if there were differences and 0 means no differences.
613
614       --quiet
615           Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
616
617       --ext-diff
618           Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
619           external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to use this
620           option with git-log(1) and friends.
621
622       --no-ext-diff
623           Disallow external diff drivers.
624
625       --textconv, --no-textconv
626           Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run when
627           comparing binary files. See gitattributes(5) for details. Because
628           textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the resulting
629           diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied. For
630           this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for git-
631           diff(1) and git-log(1), but not for git-format-patch(1) or diff
632           plumbing commands.
633
634       --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
635           Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
636           either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default.
637           Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either
638           contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the
639           commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any
640           settings of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
641           When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
642           they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for
643           modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work
644           tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the
645           superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using
646           "all" hides all changes to submodules.
647
648       --src-prefix=<prefix>
649           Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
650
651       --dst-prefix=<prefix>
652           Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
653
654       --no-prefix
655           Do not show any source or destination prefix.
656
657       --line-prefix=<prefix>
658           Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.
659
660       --ita-invisible-in-index
661           By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing
662           empty file in "git diff" and a new file in "git diff --cached".
663           This option makes the entry appear as a new file in "git diff" and
664           non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be reverted
665           with --ita-visible-in-index. Both options are experimental and
666           could be removed in future.
667
668       For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
669       gitdiffcore(7).
670
671       <tree-ish>
672           The id of a tree object to diff against.
673
674       --cached
675           Do not consider the on-disk file at all.
676
677       --merge-base
678           Instead of comparing <tree-ish> directly, use the merge base
679           between <tree-ish> and HEAD instead. <tree-ish> must be a commit.
680
681       -m
682           By default, files recorded in the index but not checked out are
683           reported as deleted. This flag makes git diff-index say that all
684           non-checked-out files are up to date.
685

RAW OUTPUT FORMAT

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

DIFF FORMAT FOR MERGES

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

GENERATING PATCH TEXT WITH -P

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

COMBINED DIFF FORMAT

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

OTHER DIFF FORMATS

1007       The --summary option describes newly added, deleted, renamed and copied
1008       files. The --stat option adds diffstat(1) graph to the output. These
1009       options can be combined with other options, such as -p, and are meant
1010       for human consumption.
1011
1012       When showing a change that involves a rename or a copy, --stat output
1013       formats the pathnames compactly by combining common prefix and suffix
1014       of the pathnames. For example, a change that moves arch/i386/Makefile
1015       to arch/x86/Makefile while modifying 4 lines will be shown like this:
1016
1017           arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile    |   4 +--
1018
1019       The --numstat option gives the diffstat(1) information but is designed
1020       for easier machine consumption. An entry in --numstat output looks like
1021       this:
1022
1023           1       2       README
1024           3       1       arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile
1025
1026       That is, from left to right:
1027
1028        1. the number of added lines;
1029
1030        2. a tab;
1031
1032        3. the number of deleted lines;
1033
1034        4. a tab;
1035
1036        5. pathname (possibly with rename/copy information);
1037
1038        6. a newline.
1039
1040       When -z output option is in effect, the output is formatted this way:
1041
1042           1       2       README NUL
1043           3       1       NUL arch/i386/Makefile NUL arch/x86/Makefile NUL
1044
1045       That is:
1046
1047        1. the number of added lines;
1048
1049        2. a tab;
1050
1051        3. the number of deleted lines;
1052
1053        4. a tab;
1054
1055        5. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1056
1057        6. pathname in preimage;
1058
1059        7. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1060
1061        8. pathname in postimage (only exists if renamed/copied);
1062
1063        9. a NUL.
1064
1065       The extra NUL before the preimage path in renamed case is to allow
1066       scripts that read the output to tell if the current record being read
1067       is a single-path record or a rename/copy record without reading ahead.
1068       After reading added and deleted lines, reading up to NUL would yield
1069       the pathname, but if that is NUL, the record will show two paths.
1070

OPERATING MODES

1072       You can choose whether you want to trust the index file entirely (using
1073       the --cached flag) or ask the diff logic to show any files that don’t
1074       match the stat state as being "tentatively changed". Both of these
1075       operations are very useful indeed.
1076

CACHED MODE

1078       If --cached is specified, it allows you to ask:
1079
1080           show me the differences between HEAD and the current index
1081           contents (the ones I'd write using 'git write-tree')
1082
1083       For example, let’s say that you have worked on your working directory,
1084       updated some files in the index and are ready to commit. You want to
1085       see exactly what you are going to commit, without having to write a new
1086       tree object and compare it that way, and to do that, you just do
1087
1088           git diff-index --cached HEAD
1089
1090       Example: let’s say I had renamed commit.c to git-commit.c, and I had
1091       done an update-index to make that effective in the index file. git
1092       diff-files wouldn’t show anything at all, since the index file matches
1093       my working directory. But doing a git diff-index does:
1094
1095           torvalds@ppc970:~/git> git diff-index --cached HEAD
1096           -100644 blob    4161aecc6700a2eb579e842af0b7f22b98443f74        commit.c
1097           +100644 blob    4161aecc6700a2eb579e842af0b7f22b98443f74        git-commit.c
1098
1099       You can see easily that the above is a rename.
1100
1101       In fact, git diff-index --cached should always be entirely equivalent
1102       to actually doing a git write-tree and comparing that. Except this one
1103       is much nicer for the case where you just want to check where you are.
1104
1105       So doing a git diff-index --cached is basically very useful when you
1106       are asking yourself "what have I already marked for being committed,
1107       and what’s the difference to a previous tree".
1108

NON-CACHED MODE

1110       The "non-cached" mode takes a different approach, and is potentially
1111       the more useful of the two in that what it does can’t be emulated with
1112       a git write-tree + git diff-tree. Thus that’s the default mode. The
1113       non-cached version asks the question:
1114
1115           show me the differences between HEAD and the currently checked out
1116           tree - index contents _and_ files that aren't up to date
1117
1118       which is obviously a very useful question too, since that tells you
1119       what you could commit. Again, the output matches the git diff-tree -r
1120       output to a tee, but with a twist.
1121
1122       The twist is that if some file doesn’t match the index, we don’t have a
1123       backing store thing for it, and we use the magic "all-zero" sha1 to
1124       show that. So let’s say that you have edited kernel/sched.c, but have
1125       not actually done a git update-index on it yet - there is no "object"
1126       associated with the new state, and you get:
1127
1128           torvalds@ppc970:~/v2.6/linux> git diff-index --abbrev HEAD
1129           :100644 100664 7476bb... 000000...      kernel/sched.c
1130
1131       i.e., it shows that the tree has changed, and that kernel/sched.c is
1132       not up to date and may contain new stuff. The all-zero sha1 means that
1133       to get the real diff, you need to look at the object in the working
1134       directory directly rather than do an object-to-object diff.
1135
1136           Note
1137           As with other commands of this type, git diff-index does not
1138           actually look at the contents of the file at all. So maybe
1139           kernel/sched.c hasn’t actually changed, and it’s just that you
1140           touched it. In either case, it’s a note that you need to git
1141           update-index it to make the index be in sync.
1142
1143           Note
1144           You can have a mixture of files show up as "has been updated" and
1145           "is still dirty in the working directory" together. You can always
1146           tell which file is in which state, since the "has been updated"
1147           ones show a valid sha1, and the "not in sync with the index" ones
1148           will always have the special all-zero sha1.
1149

GIT

1151       Part of the git(1) suite
1152
1153
1154
1155Git 2.30.2                        2021-03-08                 GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1)
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