1GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1) Git Manual GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1)
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6 git-diff-index - Compare a tree to the working tree or index
7
9 git diff-index [-m] [--cached] [<common diff options>] <tree-ish> [<path>...]
10
13 Compares the content and mode of the blobs found in a tree object with
14 the corresponding tracked files in the working tree, or with the
15 corresponding paths in the index. When <path> arguments are present,
16 compares only paths matching those patterns. Otherwise all tracked
17 files are compared.
18
20 -p, -u, --patch
21 Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
22 -s, --no-patch
24 Suppress diff output. Useful for commands like git show that show
25 the patch by default, or to cancel the effect of --patch.
26 -U<n>, --unified=<n>
28 Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual
29 three. Implies -p.
30 --raw
32 Generate the diff in raw format. This is the default.
33 --patch-with-raw
35 Synonym for -p --raw.
36 --indent-heuristic
38 Enable the heuristic that shifts diff hunk boundaries to make
39 patches easier to read. This is the default.
40 --no-indent-heuristic
42 Disable the indent heuristic.
43 --minimal
45 Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
46 produced.
47 --patience
49 Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
50 --histogram
52 Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.
53 --anchored=<text>
55 Generate a diff using the "anchored diff" algorithm.
56 This option may be specified more than once.
58 If a line exists in both the source and destination, exists only
60 once, and starts with this text, this algorithm attempts to prevent
61 it from appearing as a deletion or addition in the output. It uses
62 the "patience diff" algorithm internally.
63 --diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}
65 Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
66 default, myers
68 The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the
69 default.
70 minimal
72 Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
73 produced.
74 patience
76 Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
77 histogram
79 This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
80 low-occurrence common elements".
81 For instance, if you configured the diff.algorithm variable to a
83 non-default value and want to use the default one, then you have to
84 use --diff-algorithm=default option.
85 --stat[=<width>[,<name-width>[,<count>]]]
87 Generate a diffstat. By default, as much space as necessary will be
88 used for the filename part, and the rest for the graph part.
89 Maximum width defaults to terminal width, or 80 columns if not
90 connected to a terminal, and can be overridden by <width>. The
91 width of the filename part can be limited by giving another width
92 <name-width> after a comma. The width of the graph part can be
93 limited by using --stat-graph-width=<width> (affects all commands
94 generating a stat graph) or by setting diff.statGraphWidth=<width>
95 (does not affect git format-patch). By giving a third parameter
96 <count>, you can limit the output to the first <count> lines,
97 followed by ... if there are more.
98 These parameters can also be set individually with
100 --stat-width=<width>, --stat-name-width=<name-width> and
101 --stat-count=<count>.
102 --compact-summary
104 Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
105 file creations or deletions ("new" or "gone", optionally "+l" if
106 it’s a symlink) and mode changes ("+x" or "-x" for adding or
107 removing executable bit respectively) in diffstat. The information
108 is put between the filename part and the graph part. Implies
109 --stat.
110 --numstat
112 Similar to --stat, but shows number of added and deleted lines in
113 decimal notation and pathname without abbreviation, to make it more
114 machine friendly. For binary files, outputs two - instead of saying
115 0 0.
116 --shortstat
118 Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
119 number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
120 lines.
121 --dirstat[=<param1,param2,...>]
123 Output the distribution of relative amount of changes for each
124 sub-directory. The behavior of --dirstat can be customized by
125 passing it a comma separated list of parameters. The defaults are
126 controlled by the diff.dirstat configuration variable (see git-
127 config(1)). The following parameters are available:
128 changes
130 Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have
131 been removed from the source, or added to the destination. This
132 ignores the amount of pure code movements within a file. In
133 other words, rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much
134 as other changes. This is the default behavior when no
135 parameter is given.
136 lines
138 Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based
139 diff analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts. (For
140 binary files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary files
141 have no natural concept of lines). This is a more expensive
142 --dirstat behavior than the changes behavior, but it does count
143 rearranged lines within a file as much as other changes. The
144 resulting output is consistent with what you get from the other
145 --*stat options.
146 files
148 Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files
149 changed. Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat
150 analysis. This is the computationally cheapest --dirstat
151 behavior, since it does not have to look at the file contents
152 at all.
153 cumulative
155 Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory as
156 well. Note that when using cumulative, the sum of the
157 percentages reported may exceed 100%. The default
158 (non-cumulative) behavior can be specified with the
159 noncumulative parameter.
160 <limit>
162 An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by
163 default). Directories contributing less than this percentage of
164 the changes are not shown in the output.
165 Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring
167 directories with less than 10% of the total amount of changed
168 files, and accumulating child directory counts in the parent
169 directories: --dirstat=files,10,cumulative.
170 --summary
172 Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
173 creations, renames and mode changes.
174 --patch-with-stat
176 Synonym for -p --stat.
177 -z
179 When --raw, --numstat, --name-only or --name-status has been given,
180 do not munge pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
181 Without this option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
183 as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see
184 git-config(1)).
185 --name-only
187 Show only names of changed files.
188 --name-status
190 Show only names and status of changed files. See the description of
191 the --diff-filter option on what the status letters mean.
192 --submodule[=<format>]
194 Specify how differences in submodules are shown. When specifying
195 --submodule=short the short format is used. This format just shows
196 the names of the commits at the beginning and end of the range.
197 When --submodule or --submodule=log is specified, the log format is
198 used. This format lists the commits in the range like git-
199 submodule(1) summary does. When --submodule=diff is specified, the
200 diff format is used. This format shows an inline diff of the
201 changes in the submodule contents between the commit range.
202 Defaults to diff.submodule or the short format if the config option
203 is unset.
204 --color[=<when>]
206 Show colored diff. --color (i.e. without =<when>) is the same as
207 --color=always. <when> can be one of always, never, or auto.
208 --no-color
210 Turn off colored diff. It is the same as --color=never.
211 --color-moved[=<mode>]
213 Moved lines of code are colored differently. The <mode> defaults to
214 no if the option is not given and to zebra if the option with no
215 mode is given. The mode must be one of:
216 no
218 Moved lines are not highlighted.
219 default
221 Is a synonym for zebra. This may change to a more sensible mode
222 in the future.
223 plain
225 Any line that is added in one location and was removed in
226 another location will be colored with color.diff.newMoved.
227 Similarly color.diff.oldMoved will be used for removed lines
228 that are added somewhere else in the diff. This mode picks up
229 any moved line, but it is not very useful in a review to
230 determine if a block of code was moved without permutation.
231 blocks
233 Blocks of moved text of at least 20 alphanumeric characters are
234 detected greedily. The detected blocks are painted using either
235 the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color. Adjacent blocks cannot be
236 told apart.
237 zebra
239 Blocks of moved text are detected as in blocks mode. The blocks
240 are painted using either the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color or
241 color.diff.{old,new}MovedAlternative. The change between the
242 two colors indicates that a new block was detected.
243 dimmed-zebra
245 Similar to zebra, but additional dimming of uninteresting parts
246 of moved code is performed. The bordering lines of two adjacent
247 blocks are considered interesting, the rest is uninteresting.
248 dimmed_zebra is a deprecated synonym.
249 --color-moved-ws=<modes>
251 This configures how white spaces are ignored when performing the
252 move detection for --color-moved. These modes can be given as a
253 comma separated list:
254 ignore-space-at-eol
256 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
257 ignore-space-change
259 Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace
260 at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
261 whitespace characters to be equivalent.
262 ignore-all-space
264 Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores
265 differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
266 line has none.
267 allow-indentation-change
269 Initially ignore any white spaces in the move detection, then
270 group the moved code blocks only into a block if the change in
271 whitespace is the same per line. This is incompatible with the
272 other modes.
273 --word-diff[=<mode>]
275 Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words. By
276 default, words are delimited by whitespace; see --word-diff-regex
277 below. The <mode> defaults to plain, and must be one of:
278 color
280 Highlight changed words using only colors. Implies --color.
281 plain
283 Show words as [-removed-] and {+added+}. Makes no attempts to
284 escape the delimiters if they appear in the input, so the
285 output may be ambiguous.
286 porcelain
288 Use a special line-based format intended for script
289 consumption. Added/removed/unchanged runs are printed in the
290 usual unified diff format, starting with a +/-/` ` character at
291 the beginning of the line and extending to the end of the line.
292 Newlines in the input are represented by a tilde ~ on a line of
293 its own.
294 none
296 Disable word diff again.
297 Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to
299 highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
300 --word-diff-regex=<regex>
302 Use <regex> to decide what a word is, instead of considering runs
303 of non-whitespace to be a word. Also implies --word-diff unless it
304 was already enabled.
305 Every non-overlapping match of the <regex> is considered a word.
307 Anything between these matches is considered whitespace and
308 ignored(!) for the purposes of finding differences. You may want to
309 append |[^[:space:]] to your regular expression to make sure that
310 it matches all non-whitespace characters. A match that contains a
311 newline is silently truncated(!) at the newline.
312 For example, --word-diff-regex=. will treat each character as a
314 word and, correspondingly, show differences character by character.
315 The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration
317 option, see gitattributes(5) or git-config(1). Giving it explicitly
318 overrides any diff driver or configuration setting. Diff drivers
319 override configuration settings.
320 --color-words[=<regex>]
322 Equivalent to --word-diff=color plus (if a regex was specified)
323 --word-diff-regex=<regex>.
324 --no-renames
326 Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives
327 the default to do so.
328 --check
330 Warn if changes introduce conflict markers or whitespace errors.
331 What are considered whitespace errors is controlled by
332 core.whitespace configuration. By default, trailing whitespaces
333 (including lines that consist solely of whitespaces) and a space
334 character that is immediately followed by a tab character inside
335 the initial indent of the line are considered whitespace errors.
336 Exits with non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible
337 with --exit-code.
338 --ws-error-highlight=<kind>
340 Highlight whitespace errors in the context, old or new lines of the
341 diff. Multiple values are separated by comma, none resets previous
342 values, default reset the list to new and all is a shorthand for
343 old,new,context. When this option is not given, and the
344 configuration variable diff.wsErrorHighlight is not set, only
345 whitespace errors in new lines are highlighted. The whitespace
346 errors are colored with color.diff.whitespace.
347 --full-index
349 Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full pre- and
350 post-image blob object names on the "index" line when generating
351 patch format output.
352 --binary
354 In addition to --full-index, output a binary diff that can be
355 applied with git-apply.
356 --abbrev[=<n>]
358 Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in
359 diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show only a
360 partial prefix. This is independent of the --full-index option
361 above, which controls the diff-patch output format. Non default
362 number of digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
363 -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
365 Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
366 This serves two purposes:
367 It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a
369 file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
370 a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but
371 as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
372 insertion of everything new, and the number m controls this aspect
373 of the -B option (defaults to 60%). -B/70% specifies that less
374 than 30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to
375 consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch
376 will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
377 context lines).
378 When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as
380 the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that
381 disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number n controls
382 this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%). -B20% specifies
383 that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of
384 the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible
385 source of a rename to another file.
386 -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
388 Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a threshold on the
389 similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
390 file’s size). For example, -M90% means Git should consider a
391 delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t
392 changed. Without a % sign, the number is to be read as a fraction,
393 with a decimal point before it. I.e., -M5 becomes 0.5, and is thus
394 the same as -M50%. Similarly, -M05 is the same as -M5%. To limit
395 detection to exact renames, use -M100%. The default similarity
396 index is 50%.
397 -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
399 Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder. If
400 n is specified, it has the same meaning as for -M<n>.
401 --find-copies-harder
403 For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only if
404 the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset.
405 This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
406 for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for
407 large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C
408 option has the same effect.
409 -D, --irreversible-delete
411 Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
412 the diff between the preimage and /dev/null. The resulting patch is
413 not meant to be applied with patch or git apply; this is solely for
414 people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after the
415 change. In addition, the output obviously lacks enough information
416 to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually, hence the name of
417 the option.
418 When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion
420 part of a delete/create pair.
421 -l<num>
423 The -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n is the
424 number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents
425 rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy
426 targets exceeds the specified number.
427 --diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]
429 Select only files that are Added (A), Copied (C), Deleted (D),
430 Modified (M), Renamed (R), have their type (i.e. regular file,
431 symlink, submodule, ...) changed (T), are Unmerged (U), are Unknown
432 (X), or have had their pairing Broken (B). Any combination of the
433 filter characters (including none) can be used. When *
434 (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all paths are selected
435 if there is any file that matches other criteria in the comparison;
436 if there is no file that matches other criteria, nothing is
437 selected.
438 Also, these upper-case letters can be downcased to exclude. E.g.
440 --diff-filter=ad excludes added and deleted paths.
441 Note that not all diffs can feature all types. For instance, diffs
443 from the index to the working tree can never have Added entries
444 (because the set of paths included in the diff is limited by what
445 is in the index). Similarly, copied and renamed entries cannot
446 appear if detection for those types is disabled.
447 -S<string>
449 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
450 specified string (i.e. addition/deletion) in a file. Intended for
451 the scripter’s use.
452 It is useful when you’re looking for an exact block of code (like a
454 struct), and want to know the history of that block since it first
455 came into being: use the feature iteratively to feed the
456 interesting block in the preimage back into -S, and keep going
457 until you get the very first version of the block.
458 -G<regex>
460 Look for differences whose patch text contains added/removed lines
461 that match <regex>.
462 To illustrate the difference between -S<regex> --pickaxe-regex and
464 -G<regex>, consider a commit with the following diff in the same
465 file:
466 + return !regexec(regexp, two->ptr, 1, ®match, 0);
468 ...
469 - hit = !regexec(regexp, mf2.ptr, 1, ®match, 0);
470 While git log -G"regexec\(regexp" will show this commit, git log
472 -S"regexec\(regexp" --pickaxe-regex will not (because the number of
473 occurrences of that string did not change).
474 See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more information.
476 --find-object=<object-id>
478 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
479 specified object. Similar to -S, just the argument is different in
480 that it doesn’t search for a specific string but for a specific
481 object id.
482 The object can be a blob or a submodule commit. It implies the -t
484 option in git-log to also find trees.
485 --pickaxe-all
487 When -S or -G finds a change, show all the changes in that
488 changeset, not just the files that contain the change in <string>.
489 --pickaxe-regex
491 Treat the <string> given to -S as an extended POSIX regular
492 expression to match.
493 -O<orderfile>
495 Control the order in which files appear in the output. This
496 overrides the diff.orderFile configuration variable (see git-
497 config(1)). To cancel diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.
498 The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in
500 <orderfile>. All files with pathnames that match the first pattern
501 are output first, all files with pathnames that match the second
502 pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on. All files
503 with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output last, as if
504 there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of the file. If
505 multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match the same pattern
506 but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each other
507 is the normal order.
508 <orderfile> is parsed as follows:
510 · Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators for
512 readability.
513 · Lines starting with a hash ("#") are ignored, so they can be
515 used for comments. Add a backslash ("\") to the beginning of
516 the pattern if it starts with a hash.
517 · Each other line contains a single pattern.
519 Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
521 fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also
522 matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
523 components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern "foo*bar"
524 matches "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not "foobarx".
525 -R
527 Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk
528 file to tree contents.
529 --relative[=<path>]
531 When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be told to
532 exclude changes outside the directory and show pathnames relative
533 to it with this option. When you are not in a subdirectory (e.g. in
534 a bare repository), you can name which subdirectory to make the
535 output relative to by giving a <path> as an argument.
536 -a, --text
538 Treat all files as text.
539 --ignore-cr-at-eol
541 Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.
542 --ignore-space-at-eol
544 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
545 -b, --ignore-space-change
547 Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace at
548 line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
549 whitespace characters to be equivalent.
550 -w, --ignore-all-space
552 Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
553 even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
554 --ignore-blank-lines
556 Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
557 --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
559 Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number of
560 lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other. Defaults
561 to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is unset.
562 -W, --function-context
564 Show whole surrounding functions of changes.
565 --exit-code
567 Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1). That is, it
568 exits with 1 if there were differences and 0 means no differences.
569 --quiet
571 Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
572 --ext-diff
574 Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
575 external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to use this
576 option with git-log(1) and friends.
577 --no-ext-diff
579 Disallow external diff drivers.
580 --textconv, --no-textconv
582 Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run when
583 comparing binary files. See gitattributes(5) for details. Because
584 textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the resulting
585 diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied. For
586 this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for git-
587 diff(1) and git-log(1), but not for git-format-patch(1) or diff
588 plumbing commands.
589 --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
591 Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
592 either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default.
593 Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either
594 contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the
595 commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any
596 settings of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
597 When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
598 they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for
599 modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work
600 tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the
601 superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using
602 "all" hides all changes to submodules.
603 --src-prefix=<prefix>
605 Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
606 --dst-prefix=<prefix>
608 Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
609 --no-prefix
611 Do not show any source or destination prefix.
612 --line-prefix=<prefix>
614 Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.
615 --ita-invisible-in-index
617 By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing
618 empty file in "git diff" and a new file in "git diff --cached".
619 This option makes the entry appear as a new file in "git diff" and
620 non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be reverted
621 with --ita-visible-in-index. Both options are experimental and
622 could be removed in future.
623 For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
625 gitdiffcore(7).
626 <tree-ish>
628 The id of a tree object to diff against.
629 --cached
631 do not consider the on-disk file at all
632 -m
634 By default, files recorded in the index but not checked out are
635 reported as deleted. This flag makes git diff-index say that all
636 non-checked-out files are up to date.
637
639 The raw output format from "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree",
640 "git-diff-files" and "git diff --raw" are very similar.
641 These commands all compare two sets of things; what is compared
643 differs:
644 git-diff-index <tree-ish>
646 compares the <tree-ish> and the files on the filesystem.
647 git-diff-index --cached <tree-ish>
649 compares the <tree-ish> and the index.
650 git-diff-tree [-r] <tree-ish-1> <tree-ish-2> [<pattern>...]
652 compares the trees named by the two arguments.
653 git-diff-files [<pattern>...]
655 compares the index and the files on the filesystem.
656 The "git-diff-tree" command begins its output by printing the hash of
658 what is being compared. After that, all the commands print one output
659 line per changed file.
660 An output line is formatted this way:
662 in-place edit :100644 100644 bcd1234 0123456 M file0
664 copy-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 C68 file1 file2
665 rename-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 R86 file1 file3
666 create :000000 100644 0000000 1234567 A file4
667 delete :100644 000000 1234567 0000000 D file5
668 unmerged :000000 000000 0000000 0000000 U file6
669 That is, from the left to the right:
672 1. a colon.
674 2. mode for "src"; 000000 if creation or unmerged.
676 3. a space.
678 4. mode for "dst"; 000000 if deletion or unmerged.
680 5. a space.
682 6. sha1 for "src"; 0{40} if creation or unmerged.
684 7. a space.
686 8. sha1 for "dst"; 0{40} if creation, unmerged or "look at work tree".
688 9. a space.
690 10. status, followed by optional "score" number.
692 11. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used.
694 12. path for "src"
696 13. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used; only exists for C or R.
698 14. path for "dst"; only exists for C or R.
700 15. an LF or a NUL when -z option is used, to terminate the record.
702 Possible status letters are:
704 · A: addition of a file
706 · C: copy of a file into a new one
708 · D: deletion of a file
710 · M: modification of the contents or mode of a file
712 · R: renaming of a file
714 · T: change in the type of the file
716 · U: file is unmerged (you must complete the merge before it can be
718 committed)
719 · X: "unknown" change type (most probably a bug, please report it)
721 Status letters C and R are always followed by a score (denoting the
723 percentage of similarity between the source and target of the move or
724 copy). Status letter M may be followed by a score (denoting the
725 percentage of dissimilarity) for file rewrites.
726 <sha1> is shown as all 0’s if a file is new on the filesystem and it is
728 out of sync with the index.
729 Example:
731 :100644 100644 5be4a4a 0000000 M file.c
733 Without the -z option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
736 as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-
737 config(1)). Using -z the filename is output verbatim and the line is
738 terminated by a NUL byte.
739
741 "git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff --raw" can take -c or
742 --cc option to generate diff output also for merge commits. The output
743 differs from the format described above in the following way:
744 1. there is a colon for each parent
746 2. there are more "src" modes and "src" sha1
748 3. status is concatenated status characters for each parent
750 4. no optional "score" number
752 5. single path, only for "dst"
754 Example:
756 ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM describe.c
758 Note that combined diff lists only files which were modified from all
761 parents.
762
764 When "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree", or "git-diff-files" are run
765 with a -p option, "git diff" without the --raw option, or "git log"
766 with the "-p" option, they do not produce the output described above;
767 instead they produce a patch file. You can customize the creation of
768 such patches via the GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS
769 environment variables.
770 What the -p option produces is slightly different from the traditional
772 diff format:
773 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header that looks like this:
775 diff --git a/file1 b/file2
777 The a/ and b/ filenames are the same unless rename/copy is
779 involved. Especially, even for a creation or a deletion, /dev/null
780 is not used in place of the a/ or b/ filenames.
781 When rename/copy is involved, file1 and file2 show the name of the
783 source file of the rename/copy and the name of the file that
784 rename/copy produces, respectively.
785 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines:
787 old mode <mode>
789 new mode <mode>
790 deleted file mode <mode>
791 new file mode <mode>
792 copy from <path>
793 copy to <path>
794 rename from <path>
795 rename to <path>
796 similarity index <number>
797 dissimilarity index <number>
798 index <hash>..<hash> <mode>
799 File modes are printed as 6-digit octal numbers including the file
801 type and file permission bits.
802 Path names in extended headers do not include the a/ and b/
804 prefixes.
805 The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines, and the
807 dissimilarity index is the percentage of changed lines. It is a
808 rounded down integer, followed by a percent sign. The similarity
809 index value of 100% is thus reserved for two equal files, while
810 100% dissimilarity means that no line from the old file made it
811 into the new one.
812 The index line includes the SHA-1 checksum before and after the
814 change. The <mode> is included if the file mode does not change;
815 otherwise, separate lines indicate the old and the new mode.
816 3. Pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the
818 configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).
819 4. All the file1 files in the output refer to files before the commit,
821 and all the file2 files refer to files after the commit. It is
822 incorrect to apply each change to each file sequentially. For
823 example, this patch will swap a and b:
824 diff --git a/a b/b
826 rename from a
827 rename to b
828 diff --git a/b b/a
829 rename from b
830 rename to a
831
833 Any diff-generating command can take the -c or --cc option to produce a
834 combined diff when showing a merge. This is the default format when
835 showing merges with git-diff(1) or git-show(1). Note also that you can
836 give the -m option to any of these commands to force generation of
837 diffs with individual parents of a merge.
838 A combined diff format looks like this:
840 diff --combined describe.c
842 index fabadb8,cc95eb0..4866510
843 --- a/describe.c
844 +++ b/describe.c
845 @@@ -98,20 -98,12 +98,20 @@@
846 return (a_date > b_date) ? -1 : (a_date == b_date) ? 0 : 1;
847 }
848 - static void describe(char *arg)
850 -static void describe(struct commit *cmit, int last_one)
851 ++static void describe(char *arg, int last_one)
852 {
853 + unsigned char sha1[20];
854 + struct commit *cmit;
855 struct commit_list *list;
856 static int initialized = 0;
857 struct commit_name *n;
858 + if (get_sha1(arg, sha1) < 0)
860 + usage(describe_usage);
861 + cmit = lookup_commit_reference(sha1);
862 + if (!cmit)
863 + usage(describe_usage);
864 +
865 if (!initialized) {
866 initialized = 1;
867 for_each_ref(get_name);
868 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header, that looks like this (when
872 -c option is used):
873 diff --combined file
875 or like this (when --cc option is used):
877 diff --cc file
879 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines (this example
881 shows a merge with two parents):
882 index <hash>,<hash>..<hash>
884 mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode>
885 new file mode <mode>
886 deleted file mode <mode>,<mode>
887 The mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode> line appears only if at least one of
889 the <mode> is different from the rest. Extended headers with
890 information about detected contents movement (renames and copying
891 detection) are designed to work with diff of two <tree-ish> and are
892 not used by combined diff format.
893 3. It is followed by two-line from-file/to-file header
895 --- a/file
897 +++ b/file
898 Similar to two-line header for traditional unified diff format,
900 /dev/null is used to signal created or deleted files.
901 4. Chunk header format is modified to prevent people from accidentally
903 feeding it to patch -p1. Combined diff format was created for
904 review of merge commit changes, and was not meant for apply. The
905 change is similar to the change in the extended index header:
906 @@@ <from-file-range> <from-file-range> <to-file-range> @@@
908 There are (number of parents + 1) @ characters in the chunk header
910 for combined diff format.
911 Unlike the traditional unified diff format, which shows two files A and
913 B with a single column that has - (minus — appears in A but removed in
914 B), + (plus — missing in A but added to B), or " " (space — unchanged)
915 prefix, this format compares two or more files file1, file2,... with
916 one file X, and shows how X differs from each of fileN. One column for
917 each of fileN is prepended to the output line to note how X’s line is
918 different from it.
919 A - character in the column N means that the line appears in fileN but
921 it does not appear in the result. A + character in the column N means
922 that the line appears in the result, and fileN does not have that line
923 (in other words, the line was added, from the point of view of that
924 parent).
925 In the above example output, the function signature was changed from
927 both files (hence two - removals from both file1 and file2, plus ++ to
928 mean one line that was added does not appear in either file1 or file2).
929 Also eight other lines are the same from file1 but do not appear in
930 file2 (hence prefixed with +).
931 When shown by git diff-tree -c, it compares the parents of a merge
933 commit with the merge result (i.e. file1..fileN are the parents). When
934 shown by git diff-files -c, it compares the two unresolved merge
935 parents with the working tree file (i.e. file1 is stage 2 aka "our
936 version", file2 is stage 3 aka "their version").
937
939 The --summary option describes newly added, deleted, renamed and copied
940 files. The --stat option adds diffstat(1) graph to the output. These
941 options can be combined with other options, such as -p, and are meant
942 for human consumption.
943 When showing a change that involves a rename or a copy, --stat output
945 formats the pathnames compactly by combining common prefix and suffix
946 of the pathnames. For example, a change that moves arch/i386/Makefile
947 to arch/x86/Makefile while modifying 4 lines will be shown like this:
948 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile | 4 +--
950 The --numstat option gives the diffstat(1) information but is designed
953 for easier machine consumption. An entry in --numstat output looks like
954 this:
955 1 2 README
957 3 1 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile
958 That is, from left to right:
961 1. the number of added lines;
963 2. a tab;
965 3. the number of deleted lines;
967 4. a tab;
969 5. pathname (possibly with rename/copy information);
971 6. a newline.
973 When -z output option is in effect, the output is formatted this way:
975 1 2 README NUL
977 3 1 NUL arch/i386/Makefile NUL arch/x86/Makefile NUL
978 That is:
981 1. the number of added lines;
983 2. a tab;
985 3. the number of deleted lines;
987 4. a tab;
989 5. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
991 6. pathname in preimage;
993 7. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
995 8. pathname in postimage (only exists if renamed/copied);
997 9. a NUL.
999 The extra NUL before the preimage path in renamed case is to allow
1001 scripts that read the output to tell if the current record being read
1002 is a single-path record or a rename/copy record without reading ahead.
1003 After reading added and deleted lines, reading up to NUL would yield
1004 the pathname, but if that is NUL, the record will show two paths.
1005
1007 You can choose whether you want to trust the index file entirely (using
1008 the --cached flag) or ask the diff logic to show any files that don’t
1009 match the stat state as being "tentatively changed". Both of these
1010 operations are very useful indeed.
1011
1013 If --cached is specified, it allows you to ask:
1014 show me the differences between HEAD and the current index
1016 contents (the ones I'd write using 'git write-tree')
1017 For example, let’s say that you have worked on your working directory,
1019 updated some files in the index and are ready to commit. You want to
1020 see exactly what you are going to commit, without having to write a new
1021 tree object and compare it that way, and to do that, you just do
1022 git diff-index --cached HEAD
1024 Example: let’s say I had renamed commit.c to git-commit.c, and I had
1026 done an update-index to make that effective in the index file. git
1027 diff-files wouldn’t show anything at all, since the index file matches
1028 my working directory. But doing a git diff-index does:
1029 torvalds@ppc970:~/git> git diff-index --cached HEAD
1031 -100644 blob 4161aecc6700a2eb579e842af0b7f22b98443f74 commit.c
1032 +100644 blob 4161aecc6700a2eb579e842af0b7f22b98443f74 git-commit.c
1033 You can see easily that the above is a rename.
1035 In fact, git diff-index --cached should always be entirely equivalent
1037 to actually doing a git write-tree and comparing that. Except this one
1038 is much nicer for the case where you just want to check where you are.
1039 So doing a git diff-index --cached is basically very useful when you
1041 are asking yourself "what have I already marked for being committed,
1042 and what’s the difference to a previous tree".
1043
1045 The "non-cached" mode takes a different approach, and is potentially
1046 the more useful of the two in that what it does can’t be emulated with
1047 a git write-tree + git diff-tree. Thus that’s the default mode. The
1048 non-cached version asks the question:
1049 show me the differences between HEAD and the currently checked out
1051 tree - index contents _and_ files that aren't up to date
1052 which is obviously a very useful question too, since that tells you
1054 what you could commit. Again, the output matches the git diff-tree -r
1055 output to a tee, but with a twist.
1056 The twist is that if some file doesn’t match the index, we don’t have a
1058 backing store thing for it, and we use the magic "all-zero" sha1 to
1059 show that. So let’s say that you have edited kernel/sched.c, but have
1060 not actually done a git update-index on it yet - there is no "object"
1061 associated with the new state, and you get:
1062 torvalds@ppc970:~/v2.6/linux> git diff-index --abbrev HEAD
1064 :100644 100664 7476bb... 000000... kernel/sched.c
1065 i.e., it shows that the tree has changed, and that kernel/sched.c is
1067 not up to date and may contain new stuff. The all-zero sha1 means that
1068 to get the real diff, you need to look at the object in the working
1069 directory directly rather than do an object-to-object diff.
1070 Note
1072 As with other commands of this type, git diff-index does not
1073 actually look at the contents of the file at all. So maybe
1074 kernel/sched.c hasn’t actually changed, and it’s just that you
1075 touched it. In either case, it’s a note that you need to git
1076 update-index it to make the index be in sync.
1077 Note
1079 You can have a mixture of files show up as "has been updated" and
1080 "is still dirty in the working directory" together. You can always
1081 tell which file is in which state, since the "has been updated"
1082 ones show a valid sha1, and the "not in sync with the index" ones
1083 will always have the special all-zero sha1.
1084
1086 Part of the git(1) suite
1087Git 2.20.1 12/15/2018 GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1)