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 --no-color-moved
251 Turn off move detection. This can be used to override configuration
252 settings. It is the same as --color-moved=no.
253 --color-moved-ws=<modes>
255 This configures how whitespace is ignored when performing the move
256 detection for --color-moved. These modes can be given as a comma
257 separated list:
258 no
260 Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection.
261 ignore-space-at-eol
263 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
264 ignore-space-change
266 Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace
267 at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
268 whitespace characters to be equivalent.
269 ignore-all-space
271 Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores
272 differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
273 line has none.
274 allow-indentation-change
276 Initially ignore any whitespace in the move detection, then
277 group the moved code blocks only into a block if the change in
278 whitespace is the same per line. This is incompatible with the
279 other modes.
280 --no-color-moved-ws
282 Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection. This can
283 be used to override configuration settings. It is the same as
284 --color-moved-ws=no.
285 --word-diff[=<mode>]
287 Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words. By
288 default, words are delimited by whitespace; see --word-diff-regex
289 below. The <mode> defaults to plain, and must be one of:
290 color
292 Highlight changed words using only colors. Implies --color.
293 plain
295 Show words as [-removed-] and {+added+}. Makes no attempts to
296 escape the delimiters if they appear in the input, so the
297 output may be ambiguous.
298 porcelain
300 Use a special line-based format intended for script
301 consumption. Added/removed/unchanged runs are printed in the
302 usual unified diff format, starting with a +/-/` ` character at
303 the beginning of the line and extending to the end of the line.
304 Newlines in the input are represented by a tilde ~ on a line of
305 its own.
306 none
308 Disable word diff again.
309 Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to
311 highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
312 --word-diff-regex=<regex>
314 Use <regex> to decide what a word is, instead of considering runs
315 of non-whitespace to be a word. Also implies --word-diff unless it
316 was already enabled.
317 Every non-overlapping match of the <regex> is considered a word.
319 Anything between these matches is considered whitespace and
320 ignored(!) for the purposes of finding differences. You may want to
321 append |[^[:space:]] to your regular expression to make sure that
322 it matches all non-whitespace characters. A match that contains a
323 newline is silently truncated(!) at the newline.
324 For example, --word-diff-regex=. will treat each character as a
326 word and, correspondingly, show differences character by character.
327 The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration
329 option, see gitattributes(5) or git-config(1). Giving it explicitly
330 overrides any diff driver or configuration setting. Diff drivers
331 override configuration settings.
332 --color-words[=<regex>]
334 Equivalent to --word-diff=color plus (if a regex was specified)
335 --word-diff-regex=<regex>.
336 --no-renames
338 Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives
339 the default to do so.
340 --check
342 Warn if changes introduce conflict markers or whitespace errors.
343 What are considered whitespace errors is controlled by
344 core.whitespace configuration. By default, trailing whitespaces
345 (including lines that consist solely of whitespaces) and a space
346 character that is immediately followed by a tab character inside
347 the initial indent of the line are considered whitespace errors.
348 Exits with non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible
349 with --exit-code.
350 --ws-error-highlight=<kind>
352 Highlight whitespace errors in the context, old or new lines of the
353 diff. Multiple values are separated by comma, none resets previous
354 values, default reset the list to new and all is a shorthand for
355 old,new,context. When this option is not given, and the
356 configuration variable diff.wsErrorHighlight is not set, only
357 whitespace errors in new lines are highlighted. The whitespace
358 errors are colored with color.diff.whitespace.
359 --full-index
361 Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full pre- and
362 post-image blob object names on the "index" line when generating
363 patch format output.
364 --binary
366 In addition to --full-index, output a binary diff that can be
367 applied with git-apply.
368 --abbrev[=<n>]
370 Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in
371 diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show only a
372 partial prefix. This is independent of the --full-index option
373 above, which controls the diff-patch output format. Non default
374 number of digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
375 -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
377 Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
378 This serves two purposes:
379 It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a
381 file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
382 a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but
383 as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
384 insertion of everything new, and the number m controls this aspect
385 of the -B option (defaults to 60%). -B/70% specifies that less
386 than 30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to
387 consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch
388 will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
389 context lines).
390 When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as
392 the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that
393 disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number n controls
394 this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%). -B20% specifies
395 that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of
396 the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible
397 source of a rename to another file.
398 -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
400 Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a threshold on the
401 similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
402 file’s size). For example, -M90% means Git should consider a
403 delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t
404 changed. Without a % sign, the number is to be read as a fraction,
405 with a decimal point before it. I.e., -M5 becomes 0.5, and is thus
406 the same as -M50%. Similarly, -M05 is the same as -M5%. To limit
407 detection to exact renames, use -M100%. The default similarity
408 index is 50%.
409 -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
411 Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder. If
412 n is specified, it has the same meaning as for -M<n>.
413 --find-copies-harder
415 For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only if
416 the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset.
417 This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
418 for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for
419 large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C
420 option has the same effect.
421 -D, --irreversible-delete
423 Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
424 the diff between the preimage and /dev/null. The resulting patch is
425 not meant to be applied with patch or git apply; this is solely for
426 people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after the
427 change. In addition, the output obviously lacks enough information
428 to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually, hence the name of
429 the option.
430 When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion
432 part of a delete/create pair.
433 -l<num>
435 The -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n is the
436 number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents
437 rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy
438 targets exceeds the specified number.
439 --diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]
441 Select only files that are Added (A), Copied (C), Deleted (D),
442 Modified (M), Renamed (R), have their type (i.e. regular file,
443 symlink, submodule, ...) changed (T), are Unmerged (U), are Unknown
444 (X), or have had their pairing Broken (B). Any combination of the
445 filter characters (including none) can be used. When *
446 (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all paths are selected
447 if there is any file that matches other criteria in the comparison;
448 if there is no file that matches other criteria, nothing is
449 selected.
450 Also, these upper-case letters can be downcased to exclude. E.g.
452 --diff-filter=ad excludes added and deleted paths.
453 Note that not all diffs can feature all types. For instance, diffs
455 from the index to the working tree can never have Added entries
456 (because the set of paths included in the diff is limited by what
457 is in the index). Similarly, copied and renamed entries cannot
458 appear if detection for those types is disabled.
459 -S<string>
461 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
462 specified string (i.e. addition/deletion) in a file. Intended for
463 the scripter’s use.
464 It is useful when you’re looking for an exact block of code (like a
466 struct), and want to know the history of that block since it first
467 came into being: use the feature iteratively to feed the
468 interesting block in the preimage back into -S, and keep going
469 until you get the very first version of the block.
470 Binary files are searched as well.
472 -G<regex>
474 Look for differences whose patch text contains added/removed lines
475 that match <regex>.
476 To illustrate the difference between -S<regex> --pickaxe-regex and
478 -G<regex>, consider a commit with the following diff in the same
479 file:
480 + return !regexec(regexp, two->ptr, 1, ®match, 0);
482 ...
483 - hit = !regexec(regexp, mf2.ptr, 1, ®match, 0);
484 While git log -G"regexec\(regexp" will show this commit, git log
486 -S"regexec\(regexp" --pickaxe-regex will not (because the number of
487 occurrences of that string did not change).
488 Unless --text is supplied patches of binary files without a
490 textconv filter will be ignored.
491 See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more information.
493 --find-object=<object-id>
495 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
496 specified object. Similar to -S, just the argument is different in
497 that it doesn’t search for a specific string but for a specific
498 object id.
499 The object can be a blob or a submodule commit. It implies the -t
501 option in git-log to also find trees.
502 --pickaxe-all
504 When -S or -G finds a change, show all the changes in that
505 changeset, not just the files that contain the change in <string>.
506 --pickaxe-regex
508 Treat the <string> given to -S as an extended POSIX regular
509 expression to match.
510 -O<orderfile>
512 Control the order in which files appear in the output. This
513 overrides the diff.orderFile configuration variable (see git-
514 config(1)). To cancel diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.
515 The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in
517 <orderfile>. All files with pathnames that match the first pattern
518 are output first, all files with pathnames that match the second
519 pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on. All files
520 with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output last, as if
521 there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of the file. If
522 multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match the same pattern
523 but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each other
524 is the normal order.
525 <orderfile> is parsed as follows:
527 · Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators for
529 readability.
530 · Lines starting with a hash ("#") are ignored, so they can be
532 used for comments. Add a backslash ("\") to the beginning of
533 the pattern if it starts with a hash.
534 · Each other line contains a single pattern.
536 Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
538 fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also
539 matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
540 components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern "foo*bar"
541 matches "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not "foobarx".
542 -R
544 Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk
545 file to tree contents.
546 --relative[=<path>]
548 When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be told to
549 exclude changes outside the directory and show pathnames relative
550 to it with this option. When you are not in a subdirectory (e.g. in
551 a bare repository), you can name which subdirectory to make the
552 output relative to by giving a <path> as an argument.
553 -a, --text
555 Treat all files as text.
556 --ignore-cr-at-eol
558 Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.
559 --ignore-space-at-eol
561 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
562 -b, --ignore-space-change
564 Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace at
565 line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
566 whitespace characters to be equivalent.
567 -w, --ignore-all-space
569 Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
570 even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
571 --ignore-blank-lines
573 Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
574 --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
576 Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number of
577 lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other. Defaults
578 to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is unset.
579 -W, --function-context
581 Show whole surrounding functions of changes.
582 --exit-code
584 Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1). That is, it
585 exits with 1 if there were differences and 0 means no differences.
586 --quiet
588 Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
589 --ext-diff
591 Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
592 external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to use this
593 option with git-log(1) and friends.
594 --no-ext-diff
596 Disallow external diff drivers.
597 --textconv, --no-textconv
599 Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run when
600 comparing binary files. See gitattributes(5) for details. Because
601 textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the resulting
602 diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied. For
603 this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for git-
604 diff(1) and git-log(1), but not for git-format-patch(1) or diff
605 plumbing commands.
606 --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
608 Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
609 either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default.
610 Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either
611 contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the
612 commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any
613 settings of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
614 When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
615 they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for
616 modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work
617 tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the
618 superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using
619 "all" hides all changes to submodules.
620 --src-prefix=<prefix>
622 Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
623 --dst-prefix=<prefix>
625 Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
626 --no-prefix
628 Do not show any source or destination prefix.
629 --line-prefix=<prefix>
631 Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.
632 --ita-invisible-in-index
634 By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing
635 empty file in "git diff" and a new file in "git diff --cached".
636 This option makes the entry appear as a new file in "git diff" and
637 non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be reverted
638 with --ita-visible-in-index. Both options are experimental and
639 could be removed in future.
640 For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
642 gitdiffcore(7).
643 <tree-ish>
645 The id of a tree object to diff against.
646 --cached
648 do not consider the on-disk file at all
649 -m
651 By default, files recorded in the index but not checked out are
652 reported as deleted. This flag makes git diff-index say that all
653 non-checked-out files are up to date.
654
656 The raw output format from "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree",
657 "git-diff-files" and "git diff --raw" are very similar.
658 These commands all compare two sets of things; what is compared
660 differs:
661 git-diff-index <tree-ish>
663 compares the <tree-ish> and the files on the filesystem.
664 git-diff-index --cached <tree-ish>
666 compares the <tree-ish> and the index.
667 git-diff-tree [-r] <tree-ish-1> <tree-ish-2> [<pattern>...]
669 compares the trees named by the two arguments.
670 git-diff-files [<pattern>...]
672 compares the index and the files on the filesystem.
673 The "git-diff-tree" command begins its output by printing the hash of
675 what is being compared. After that, all the commands print one output
676 line per changed file.
677 An output line is formatted this way:
679 in-place edit :100644 100644 bcd1234 0123456 M file0
681 copy-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 C68 file1 file2
682 rename-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 R86 file1 file3
683 create :000000 100644 0000000 1234567 A file4
684 delete :100644 000000 1234567 0000000 D file5
685 unmerged :000000 000000 0000000 0000000 U file6
686 That is, from the left to the right:
689 1. a colon.
691 2. mode for "src"; 000000 if creation or unmerged.
693 3. a space.
695 4. mode for "dst"; 000000 if deletion or unmerged.
697 5. a space.
699 6. sha1 for "src"; 0{40} if creation or unmerged.
701 7. a space.
703 8. sha1 for "dst"; 0{40} if creation, unmerged or "look at work tree".
705 9. a space.
707 10. status, followed by optional "score" number.
709 11. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used.
711 12. path for "src"
713 13. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used; only exists for C or R.
715 14. path for "dst"; only exists for C or R.
717 15. an LF or a NUL when -z option is used, to terminate the record.
719 Possible status letters are:
721 · A: addition of a file
723 · C: copy of a file into a new one
725 · D: deletion of a file
727 · M: modification of the contents or mode of a file
729 · R: renaming of a file
731 · T: change in the type of the file
733 · U: file is unmerged (you must complete the merge before it can be
735 committed)
736 · X: "unknown" change type (most probably a bug, please report it)
738 Status letters C and R are always followed by a score (denoting the
740 percentage of similarity between the source and target of the move or
741 copy). Status letter M may be followed by a score (denoting the
742 percentage of dissimilarity) for file rewrites.
743 <sha1> is shown as all 0’s if a file is new on the filesystem and it is
745 out of sync with the index.
746 Example:
748 :100644 100644 5be4a4a 0000000 M file.c
750 Without the -z option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
753 as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-
754 config(1)). Using -z the filename is output verbatim and the line is
755 terminated by a NUL byte.
756
758 "git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff --raw" can take -c or
759 --cc option to generate diff output also for merge commits. The output
760 differs from the format described above in the following way:
761 1. there is a colon for each parent
763 2. there are more "src" modes and "src" sha1
765 3. status is concatenated status characters for each parent
767 4. no optional "score" number
769 5. single path, only for "dst"
771 Example:
773 ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM describe.c
775 Note that combined diff lists only files which were modified from all
778 parents.
779
781 When "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree", or "git-diff-files" are run
782 with a -p option, "git diff" without the --raw option, or "git log"
783 with the "-p" option, they do not produce the output described above;
784 instead they produce a patch file. You can customize the creation of
785 such patches via the GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS
786 environment variables.
787 What the -p option produces is slightly different from the traditional
789 diff format:
790 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header that looks like this:
792 diff --git a/file1 b/file2
794 The a/ and b/ filenames are the same unless rename/copy is
796 involved. Especially, even for a creation or a deletion, /dev/null
797 is not used in place of the a/ or b/ filenames.
798 When rename/copy is involved, file1 and file2 show the name of the
800 source file of the rename/copy and the name of the file that
801 rename/copy produces, respectively.
802 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines:
804 old mode <mode>
806 new mode <mode>
807 deleted file mode <mode>
808 new file mode <mode>
809 copy from <path>
810 copy to <path>
811 rename from <path>
812 rename to <path>
813 similarity index <number>
814 dissimilarity index <number>
815 index <hash>..<hash> <mode>
816 File modes are printed as 6-digit octal numbers including the file
818 type and file permission bits.
819 Path names in extended headers do not include the a/ and b/
821 prefixes.
822 The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines, and the
824 dissimilarity index is the percentage of changed lines. It is a
825 rounded down integer, followed by a percent sign. The similarity
826 index value of 100% is thus reserved for two equal files, while
827 100% dissimilarity means that no line from the old file made it
828 into the new one.
829 The index line includes the SHA-1 checksum before and after the
831 change. The <mode> is included if the file mode does not change;
832 otherwise, separate lines indicate the old and the new mode.
833 3. Pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the
835 configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).
836 4. All the file1 files in the output refer to files before the commit,
838 and all the file2 files refer to files after the commit. It is
839 incorrect to apply each change to each file sequentially. For
840 example, this patch will swap a and b:
841 diff --git a/a b/b
843 rename from a
844 rename to b
845 diff --git a/b b/a
846 rename from b
847 rename to a
848
850 Any diff-generating command can take the -c or --cc option to produce a
851 combined diff when showing a merge. This is the default format when
852 showing merges with git-diff(1) or git-show(1). Note also that you can
853 give the -m option to any of these commands to force generation of
854 diffs with individual parents of a merge.
855 A combined diff format looks like this:
857 diff --combined describe.c
859 index fabadb8,cc95eb0..4866510
860 --- a/describe.c
861 +++ b/describe.c
862 @@@ -98,20 -98,12 +98,20 @@@
863 return (a_date > b_date) ? -1 : (a_date == b_date) ? 0 : 1;
864 }
865 - static void describe(char *arg)
867 -static void describe(struct commit *cmit, int last_one)
868 ++static void describe(char *arg, int last_one)
869 {
870 + unsigned char sha1[20];
871 + struct commit *cmit;
872 struct commit_list *list;
873 static int initialized = 0;
874 struct commit_name *n;
875 + if (get_sha1(arg, sha1) < 0)
877 + usage(describe_usage);
878 + cmit = lookup_commit_reference(sha1);
879 + if (!cmit)
880 + usage(describe_usage);
881 +
882 if (!initialized) {
883 initialized = 1;
884 for_each_ref(get_name);
885 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header, that looks like this (when
889 -c option is used):
890 diff --combined file
892 or like this (when --cc option is used):
894 diff --cc file
896 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines (this example
898 shows a merge with two parents):
899 index <hash>,<hash>..<hash>
901 mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode>
902 new file mode <mode>
903 deleted file mode <mode>,<mode>
904 The mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode> line appears only if at least one of
906 the <mode> is different from the rest. Extended headers with
907 information about detected contents movement (renames and copying
908 detection) are designed to work with diff of two <tree-ish> and are
909 not used by combined diff format.
910 3. It is followed by two-line from-file/to-file header
912 --- a/file
914 +++ b/file
915 Similar to two-line header for traditional unified diff format,
917 /dev/null is used to signal created or deleted files.
918 4. Chunk header format is modified to prevent people from accidentally
920 feeding it to patch -p1. Combined diff format was created for
921 review of merge commit changes, and was not meant for apply. The
922 change is similar to the change in the extended index header:
923 @@@ <from-file-range> <from-file-range> <to-file-range> @@@
925 There are (number of parents + 1) @ characters in the chunk header
927 for combined diff format.
928 Unlike the traditional unified diff format, which shows two files A and
930 B with a single column that has - (minus — appears in A but removed in
931 B), + (plus — missing in A but added to B), or " " (space — unchanged)
932 prefix, this format compares two or more files file1, file2,... with
933 one file X, and shows how X differs from each of fileN. One column for
934 each of fileN is prepended to the output line to note how X’s line is
935 different from it.
936 A - character in the column N means that the line appears in fileN but
938 it does not appear in the result. A + character in the column N means
939 that the line appears in the result, and fileN does not have that line
940 (in other words, the line was added, from the point of view of that
941 parent).
942 In the above example output, the function signature was changed from
944 both files (hence two - removals from both file1 and file2, plus ++ to
945 mean one line that was added does not appear in either file1 or file2).
946 Also eight other lines are the same from file1 but do not appear in
947 file2 (hence prefixed with +).
948 When shown by git diff-tree -c, it compares the parents of a merge
950 commit with the merge result (i.e. file1..fileN are the parents). When
951 shown by git diff-files -c, it compares the two unresolved merge
952 parents with the working tree file (i.e. file1 is stage 2 aka "our
953 version", file2 is stage 3 aka "their version").
954
956 The --summary option describes newly added, deleted, renamed and copied
957 files. The --stat option adds diffstat(1) graph to the output. These
958 options can be combined with other options, such as -p, and are meant
959 for human consumption.
960 When showing a change that involves a rename or a copy, --stat output
962 formats the pathnames compactly by combining common prefix and suffix
963 of the pathnames. For example, a change that moves arch/i386/Makefile
964 to arch/x86/Makefile while modifying 4 lines will be shown like this:
965 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile | 4 +--
967 The --numstat option gives the diffstat(1) information but is designed
970 for easier machine consumption. An entry in --numstat output looks like
971 this:
972 1 2 README
974 3 1 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile
975 That is, from left to right:
978 1. the number of added lines;
980 2. a tab;
982 3. the number of deleted lines;
984 4. a tab;
986 5. pathname (possibly with rename/copy information);
988 6. a newline.
990 When -z output option is in effect, the output is formatted this way:
992 1 2 README NUL
994 3 1 NUL arch/i386/Makefile NUL arch/x86/Makefile NUL
995 That is:
998 1. the number of added lines;
1000 2. a tab;
1002 3. the number of deleted lines;
1004 4. a tab;
1006 5. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1008 6. pathname in preimage;
1010 7. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1012 8. pathname in postimage (only exists if renamed/copied);
1014 9. a NUL.
1016 The extra NUL before the preimage path in renamed case is to allow
1018 scripts that read the output to tell if the current record being read
1019 is a single-path record or a rename/copy record without reading ahead.
1020 After reading added and deleted lines, reading up to NUL would yield
1021 the pathname, but if that is NUL, the record will show two paths.
1022
1024 You can choose whether you want to trust the index file entirely (using
1025 the --cached flag) or ask the diff logic to show any files that don’t
1026 match the stat state as being "tentatively changed". Both of these
1027 operations are very useful indeed.
1028
1030 If --cached is specified, it allows you to ask:
1031 show me the differences between HEAD and the current index
1033 contents (the ones I'd write using 'git write-tree')
1034 For example, let’s say that you have worked on your working directory,
1036 updated some files in the index and are ready to commit. You want to
1037 see exactly what you are going to commit, without having to write a new
1038 tree object and compare it that way, and to do that, you just do
1039 git diff-index --cached HEAD
1041 Example: let’s say I had renamed commit.c to git-commit.c, and I had
1043 done an update-index to make that effective in the index file. git
1044 diff-files wouldn’t show anything at all, since the index file matches
1045 my working directory. But doing a git diff-index does:
1046 torvalds@ppc970:~/git> git diff-index --cached HEAD
1048 -100644 blob 4161aecc6700a2eb579e842af0b7f22b98443f74 commit.c
1049 +100644 blob 4161aecc6700a2eb579e842af0b7f22b98443f74 git-commit.c
1050 You can see easily that the above is a rename.
1052 In fact, git diff-index --cached should always be entirely equivalent
1054 to actually doing a git write-tree and comparing that. Except this one
1055 is much nicer for the case where you just want to check where you are.
1056 So doing a git diff-index --cached is basically very useful when you
1058 are asking yourself "what have I already marked for being committed,
1059 and what’s the difference to a previous tree".
1060
1062 The "non-cached" mode takes a different approach, and is potentially
1063 the more useful of the two in that what it does can’t be emulated with
1064 a git write-tree + git diff-tree. Thus that’s the default mode. The
1065 non-cached version asks the question:
1066 show me the differences between HEAD and the currently checked out
1068 tree - index contents _and_ files that aren't up to date
1069 which is obviously a very useful question too, since that tells you
1071 what you could commit. Again, the output matches the git diff-tree -r
1072 output to a tee, but with a twist.
1073 The twist is that if some file doesn’t match the index, we don’t have a
1075 backing store thing for it, and we use the magic "all-zero" sha1 to
1076 show that. So let’s say that you have edited kernel/sched.c, but have
1077 not actually done a git update-index on it yet - there is no "object"
1078 associated with the new state, and you get:
1079 torvalds@ppc970:~/v2.6/linux> git diff-index --abbrev HEAD
1081 :100644 100664 7476bb... 000000... kernel/sched.c
1082 i.e., it shows that the tree has changed, and that kernel/sched.c is
1084 not up to date and may contain new stuff. The all-zero sha1 means that
1085 to get the real diff, you need to look at the object in the working
1086 directory directly rather than do an object-to-object diff.
1087 Note
1089 As with other commands of this type, git diff-index does not
1090 actually look at the contents of the file at all. So maybe
1091 kernel/sched.c hasn’t actually changed, and it’s just that you
1092 touched it. In either case, it’s a note that you need to git
1093 update-index it to make the index be in sync.
1094 Note
1096 You can have a mixture of files show up as "has been updated" and
1097 "is still dirty in the working directory" together. You can always
1098 tell which file is in which state, since the "has been updated"
1099 ones show a valid sha1, and the "not in sync with the index" ones
1100 will always have the special all-zero sha1.
1101
1103 Part of the git(1) suite
1104Git 2.21.0 02/24/2019 GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1)