1GIT-DIFF-FILES(1) Git Manual GIT-DIFF-FILES(1)
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6 git-diff-files - Compares files in the working tree and the index
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9 git diff-files [-q] [-0|-1|-2|-3|-c|--cc] [<common diff options>] [<path>...]
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11
13 Compares the files in the working tree and the index. When paths are
14 specified, compares only those named paths. Otherwise all entries in
15 the index are compared. The output format is the same as for git
16 diff-index and git diff-tree.
17
19 -p, -u, --patch
20 Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
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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.
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26 -U<n>, --unified=<n>
27 Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual
28 three. Implies --patch. Implies -p.
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:
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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 only a
388 partial prefix. This is independent of the --full-index option
389 above, which controls the diff-patch output format. Non default
390 number of digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
391
392 -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
393 Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
394 This serves two purposes:
395
396 It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a
397 file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
398 a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but
399 as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
400 insertion of everything new, and the number m controls this aspect
401 of the -B option (defaults to 60%). -B/70% specifies that less
402 than 30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to
403 consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch
404 will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
405 context lines).
406
407 When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as
408 the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that
409 disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number n controls
410 this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%). -B20% specifies
411 that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of
412 the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible
413 source of a rename to another file.
414
415 -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
416 Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a threshold on the
417 similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
418 file’s size). For example, -M90% means Git should consider a
419 delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t
420 changed. Without a % sign, the number is to be read as a fraction,
421 with a decimal point before it. I.e., -M5 becomes 0.5, and is thus
422 the same as -M50%. Similarly, -M05 is the same as -M5%. To limit
423 detection to exact renames, use -M100%. The default similarity
424 index is 50%.
425
426 -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
427 Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder. If
428 n is specified, it has the same meaning as for -M<n>.
429
430 --find-copies-harder
431 For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only if
432 the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset.
433 This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
434 for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for
435 large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C
436 option has the same effect.
437
438 -D, --irreversible-delete
439 Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
440 the diff between the preimage and /dev/null. The resulting patch is
441 not meant to be applied with patch or git apply; this is solely for
442 people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after the
443 change. In addition, the output obviously lacks enough information
444 to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually, hence the name of
445 the option.
446
447 When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion
448 part of a delete/create pair.
449
450 -l<num>
451 The -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n is the
452 number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents
453 rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy
454 targets exceeds the specified number.
455
456 --diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]
457 Select only files that are Added (A), Copied (C), Deleted (D),
458 Modified (M), Renamed (R), have their type (i.e. regular file,
459 symlink, submodule, ...) changed (T), are Unmerged (U), are Unknown
460 (X), or have had their pairing Broken (B). Any combination of the
461 filter characters (including none) can be used. When *
462 (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all paths are selected
463 if there is any file that matches other criteria in the comparison;
464 if there is no file that matches other criteria, nothing is
465 selected.
466
467 Also, these upper-case letters can be downcased to exclude. E.g.
468 --diff-filter=ad excludes added and deleted paths.
469
470 Note that not all diffs can feature all types. For instance, diffs
471 from the index to the working tree can never have Added entries
472 (because the set of paths included in the diff is limited by what
473 is in the index). Similarly, copied and renamed entries cannot
474 appear if detection for those types is disabled.
475
476 -S<string>
477 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
478 specified string (i.e. addition/deletion) in a file. Intended for
479 the scripter’s use.
480
481 It is useful when you’re looking for an exact block of code (like a
482 struct), and want to know the history of that block since it first
483 came into being: use the feature iteratively to feed the
484 interesting block in the preimage back into -S, and keep going
485 until you get the very first version of the block.
486
487 Binary files are searched as well.
488
489 -G<regex>
490 Look for differences whose patch text contains added/removed lines
491 that match <regex>.
492
493 To illustrate the difference between -S<regex> --pickaxe-regex and
494 -G<regex>, consider a commit with the following diff in the same
495 file:
496
497 + return !regexec(regexp, two->ptr, 1, ®match, 0);
498 ...
499 - hit = !regexec(regexp, mf2.ptr, 1, ®match, 0);
500
501 While git log -G"regexec\(regexp" will show this commit, git log
502 -S"regexec\(regexp" --pickaxe-regex will not (because the number of
503 occurrences of that string did not change).
504
505 Unless --text is supplied patches of binary files without a
506 textconv filter will be ignored.
507
508 See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more information.
509
510 --find-object=<object-id>
511 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
512 specified object. Similar to -S, just the argument is different in
513 that it doesn’t search for a specific string but for a specific
514 object id.
515
516 The object can be a blob or a submodule commit. It implies the -t
517 option in git-log to also find trees.
518
519 --pickaxe-all
520 When -S or -G finds a change, show all the changes in that
521 changeset, not just the files that contain the change in <string>.
522
523 --pickaxe-regex
524 Treat the <string> given to -S as an extended POSIX regular
525 expression to match.
526
527 -O<orderfile>
528 Control the order in which files appear in the output. This
529 overrides the diff.orderFile configuration variable (see git-
530 config(1)). To cancel diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.
531
532 The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in
533 <orderfile>. All files with pathnames that match the first pattern
534 are output first, all files with pathnames that match the second
535 pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on. All files
536 with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output last, as if
537 there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of the file. If
538 multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match the same pattern
539 but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each other
540 is the normal order.
541
542 <orderfile> is parsed as follows:
543
544 · Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators for
545 readability.
546
547 · Lines starting with a hash ("#") are ignored, so they can be
548 used for comments. Add a backslash ("\") to the beginning of
549 the pattern if it starts with a hash.
550
551 · Each other line contains a single pattern.
552
553 Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
554 fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also
555 matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
556 components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern "foo*bar"
557 matches "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not "foobarx".
558
559 -R
560 Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk
561 file to tree contents.
562
563 --relative[=<path>]
564 When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be told to
565 exclude changes outside the directory and show pathnames relative
566 to it with this option. When you are not in a subdirectory (e.g. in
567 a bare repository), you can name which subdirectory to make the
568 output relative to by giving a <path> as an argument.
569
570 -a, --text
571 Treat all files as text.
572
573 --ignore-cr-at-eol
574 Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.
575
576 --ignore-space-at-eol
577 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
578
579 -b, --ignore-space-change
580 Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace at
581 line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
582 whitespace characters to be equivalent.
583
584 -w, --ignore-all-space
585 Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
586 even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
587
588 --ignore-blank-lines
589 Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
590
591 --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
592 Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number of
593 lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other. Defaults
594 to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is unset.
595
596 -W, --function-context
597 Show whole surrounding functions of changes.
598
599 --exit-code
600 Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1). That is, it
601 exits with 1 if there were differences and 0 means no differences.
602
603 --quiet
604 Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
605
606 --ext-diff
607 Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
608 external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to use this
609 option with git-log(1) and friends.
610
611 --no-ext-diff
612 Disallow external diff drivers.
613
614 --textconv, --no-textconv
615 Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run when
616 comparing binary files. See gitattributes(5) for details. Because
617 textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the resulting
618 diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied. For
619 this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for git-
620 diff(1) and git-log(1), but not for git-format-patch(1) or diff
621 plumbing commands.
622
623 --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
624 Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
625 either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default.
626 Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either
627 contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the
628 commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any
629 settings of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
630 When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
631 they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for
632 modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work
633 tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the
634 superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using
635 "all" hides all changes to submodules.
636
637 --src-prefix=<prefix>
638 Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
639
640 --dst-prefix=<prefix>
641 Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
642
643 --no-prefix
644 Do not show any source or destination prefix.
645
646 --line-prefix=<prefix>
647 Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.
648
649 --ita-invisible-in-index
650 By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing
651 empty file in "git diff" and a new file in "git diff --cached".
652 This option makes the entry appear as a new file in "git diff" and
653 non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be reverted
654 with --ita-visible-in-index. Both options are experimental and
655 could be removed in future.
656
657 For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
658 gitdiffcore(7).
659
660 -1 --base, -2 --ours, -3 --theirs, -0
661 Diff against the "base" version, "our branch" or "their branch"
662 respectively. With these options, diffs for merged entries are not
663 shown.
664
665 The default is to diff against our branch (-2) and the cleanly
666 resolved paths. The option -0 can be given to omit diff output for
667 unmerged entries and just show "Unmerged".
668
669 -c, --cc
670 This compares stage 2 (our branch), stage 3 (their branch) and the
671 working tree file and outputs a combined diff, similar to the way
672 diff-tree shows a merge commit with these flags.
673
674 -q
675 Remain silent even on nonexistent files
676
678 The raw output format from "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree",
679 "git-diff-files" and "git diff --raw" are very similar.
680
681 These commands all compare two sets of things; what is compared
682 differs:
683
684 git-diff-index <tree-ish>
685 compares the <tree-ish> and the files on the filesystem.
686
687 git-diff-index --cached <tree-ish>
688 compares the <tree-ish> and the index.
689
690 git-diff-tree [-r] <tree-ish-1> <tree-ish-2> [<pattern>...]
691 compares the trees named by the two arguments.
692
693 git-diff-files [<pattern>...]
694 compares the index and the files on the filesystem.
695
696 The "git-diff-tree" command begins its output by printing the hash of
697 what is being compared. After that, all the commands print one output
698 line per changed file.
699
700 An output line is formatted this way:
701
702 in-place edit :100644 100644 bcd1234 0123456 M file0
703 copy-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 C68 file1 file2
704 rename-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 R86 file1 file3
705 create :000000 100644 0000000 1234567 A file4
706 delete :100644 000000 1234567 0000000 D file5
707 unmerged :000000 000000 0000000 0000000 U file6
708
709
710 That is, from the left to the right:
711
712 1. a colon.
713
714 2. mode for "src"; 000000 if creation or unmerged.
715
716 3. a space.
717
718 4. mode for "dst"; 000000 if deletion or unmerged.
719
720 5. a space.
721
722 6. sha1 for "src"; 0{40} if creation or unmerged.
723
724 7. a space.
725
726 8. sha1 for "dst"; 0{40} if creation, unmerged or "look at work tree".
727
728 9. a space.
729
730 10. status, followed by optional "score" number.
731
732 11. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used.
733
734 12. path for "src"
735
736 13. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used; only exists for C or R.
737
738 14. path for "dst"; only exists for C or R.
739
740 15. an LF or a NUL when -z option is used, to terminate the record.
741
742 Possible status letters are:
743
744 · A: addition of a file
745
746 · C: copy of a file into a new one
747
748 · D: deletion of a file
749
750 · M: modification of the contents or mode of a file
751
752 · R: renaming of a file
753
754 · T: change in the type of the file
755
756 · U: file is unmerged (you must complete the merge before it can be
757 committed)
758
759 · X: "unknown" change type (most probably a bug, please report it)
760
761 Status letters C and R are always followed by a score (denoting the
762 percentage of similarity between the source and target of the move or
763 copy). Status letter M may be followed by a score (denoting the
764 percentage of dissimilarity) for file rewrites.
765
766 <sha1> is shown as all 0’s if a file is new on the filesystem and it is
767 out of sync with the index.
768
769 Example:
770
771 :100644 100644 5be4a4a 0000000 M file.c
772
773
774 Without the -z option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
775 as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-
776 config(1)). Using -z the filename is output verbatim and the line is
777 terminated by a NUL byte.
778
780 "git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff --raw" can take -c or
781 --cc option to generate diff output also for merge commits. The output
782 differs from the format described above in the following way:
783
784 1. there is a colon for each parent
785
786 2. there are more "src" modes and "src" sha1
787
788 3. status is concatenated status characters for each parent
789
790 4. no optional "score" number
791
792 5. tab-separated pathname(s) of the file
793
794 For -c and --cc, only the destination or final path is shown even if
795 the file was renamed on any side of history. With --combined-all-paths,
796 the name of the path in each parent is shown followed by the name of
797 the path in the merge commit.
798
799 Examples for -c and --cc without --combined-all-paths:
800
801 ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM desc.c
802 ::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM bar.sh
803 ::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR phooey.c
804
805
806 Examples when --combined-all-paths added to either -c or --cc:
807
808 ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM desc.c desc.c desc.c
809 ::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM foo.sh bar.sh bar.sh
810 ::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR fooey.c fuey.c phooey.c
811
812
813 Note that combined diff lists only files which were modified from all
814 parents.
815
817 Running git-diff(1), git-log(1), git-show(1), git-diff-index(1), git-
818 diff-tree(1), or git-diff-files(1) with the -p option produces patch
819 text. You can customize the creation of patch text via the
820 GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS environment variables.
821
822 What the -p option produces is slightly different from the traditional
823 diff format:
824
825 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header that looks like this:
826
827 diff --git a/file1 b/file2
828
829 The a/ and b/ filenames are the same unless rename/copy is
830 involved. Especially, even for a creation or a deletion, /dev/null
831 is not used in place of the a/ or b/ filenames.
832
833 When rename/copy is involved, file1 and file2 show the name of the
834 source file of the rename/copy and the name of the file that
835 rename/copy produces, respectively.
836
837 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines:
838
839 old mode <mode>
840 new mode <mode>
841 deleted file mode <mode>
842 new file mode <mode>
843 copy from <path>
844 copy to <path>
845 rename from <path>
846 rename to <path>
847 similarity index <number>
848 dissimilarity index <number>
849 index <hash>..<hash> <mode>
850
851 File modes are printed as 6-digit octal numbers including the file
852 type and file permission bits.
853
854 Path names in extended headers do not include the a/ and b/
855 prefixes.
856
857 The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines, and the
858 dissimilarity index is the percentage of changed lines. It is a
859 rounded down integer, followed by a percent sign. The similarity
860 index value of 100% is thus reserved for two equal files, while
861 100% dissimilarity means that no line from the old file made it
862 into the new one.
863
864 The index line includes the blob object names before and after the
865 change. The <mode> is included if the file mode does not change;
866 otherwise, separate lines indicate the old and the new mode.
867
868 3. Pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the
869 configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).
870
871 4. All the file1 files in the output refer to files before the commit,
872 and all the file2 files refer to files after the commit. It is
873 incorrect to apply each change to each file sequentially. For
874 example, this patch will swap a and b:
875
876 diff --git a/a b/b
877 rename from a
878 rename to b
879 diff --git a/b b/a
880 rename from b
881 rename to a
882
884 Any diff-generating command can take the -c or --cc option to produce a
885 combined diff when showing a merge. This is the default format when
886 showing merges with git-diff(1) or git-show(1). Note also that you can
887 give the -m option to any of these commands to force generation of
888 diffs with individual parents of a merge.
889
890 A "combined diff" format looks like this:
891
892 diff --combined describe.c
893 index fabadb8,cc95eb0..4866510
894 --- a/describe.c
895 +++ b/describe.c
896 @@@ -98,20 -98,12 +98,20 @@@
897 return (a_date > b_date) ? -1 : (a_date == b_date) ? 0 : 1;
898 }
899
900 - static void describe(char *arg)
901 -static void describe(struct commit *cmit, int last_one)
902 ++static void describe(char *arg, int last_one)
903 {
904 + unsigned char sha1[20];
905 + struct commit *cmit;
906 struct commit_list *list;
907 static int initialized = 0;
908 struct commit_name *n;
909
910 + if (get_sha1(arg, sha1) < 0)
911 + usage(describe_usage);
912 + cmit = lookup_commit_reference(sha1);
913 + if (!cmit)
914 + usage(describe_usage);
915 +
916 if (!initialized) {
917 initialized = 1;
918 for_each_ref(get_name);
919
920
921
922 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header, that looks like this (when
923 the -c option is used):
924
925 diff --combined file
926
927 or like this (when the --cc option is used):
928
929 diff --cc file
930
931 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines (this example
932 shows a merge with two parents):
933
934 index <hash>,<hash>..<hash>
935 mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode>
936 new file mode <mode>
937 deleted file mode <mode>,<mode>
938
939 The mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode> line appears only if at least one of
940 the <mode> is different from the rest. Extended headers with
941 information about detected contents movement (renames and copying
942 detection) are designed to work with diff of two <tree-ish> and are
943 not used by combined diff format.
944
945 3. It is followed by two-line from-file/to-file header
946
947 --- a/file
948 +++ b/file
949
950 Similar to two-line header for traditional unified diff format,
951 /dev/null is used to signal created or deleted files.
952
953 However, if the --combined-all-paths option is provided, instead of
954 a two-line from-file/to-file you get a N+1 line from-file/to-file
955 header, where N is the number of parents in the merge commit
956
957 --- a/file
958 --- a/file
959 --- a/file
960 +++ b/file
961
962 This extended format can be useful if rename or copy detection is
963 active, to allow you to see the original name of the file in
964 different parents.
965
966 4. Chunk header format is modified to prevent people from accidentally
967 feeding it to patch -p1. Combined diff format was created for
968 review of merge commit changes, and was not meant to be applied.
969 The change is similar to the change in the extended index header:
970
971 @@@ <from-file-range> <from-file-range> <to-file-range> @@@
972
973 There are (number of parents + 1) @ characters in the chunk header
974 for combined diff format.
975
976 Unlike the traditional unified diff format, which shows two files A and
977 B with a single column that has - (minus — appears in A but removed in
978 B), + (plus — missing in A but added to B), or " " (space — unchanged)
979 prefix, this format compares two or more files file1, file2,... with
980 one file X, and shows how X differs from each of fileN. One column for
981 each of fileN is prepended to the output line to note how X’s line is
982 different from it.
983
984 A - character in the column N means that the line appears in fileN but
985 it does not appear in the result. A + character in the column N means
986 that the line appears in the result, and fileN does not have that line
987 (in other words, the line was added, from the point of view of that
988 parent).
989
990 In the above example output, the function signature was changed from
991 both files (hence two - removals from both file1 and file2, plus ++ to
992 mean one line that was added does not appear in either file1 or file2).
993 Also eight other lines are the same from file1 but do not appear in
994 file2 (hence prefixed with +).
995
996 When shown by git diff-tree -c, it compares the parents of a merge
997 commit with the merge result (i.e. file1..fileN are the parents). When
998 shown by git diff-files -c, it compares the two unresolved merge
999 parents with the working tree file (i.e. file1 is stage 2 aka "our
1000 version", file2 is stage 3 aka "their version").
1001
1003 The --summary option describes newly added, deleted, renamed and copied
1004 files. The --stat option adds diffstat(1) graph to the output. These
1005 options can be combined with other options, such as -p, and are meant
1006 for human consumption.
1007
1008 When showing a change that involves a rename or a copy, --stat output
1009 formats the pathnames compactly by combining common prefix and suffix
1010 of the pathnames. For example, a change that moves arch/i386/Makefile
1011 to arch/x86/Makefile while modifying 4 lines will be shown like this:
1012
1013 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile | 4 +--
1014
1015
1016 The --numstat option gives the diffstat(1) information but is designed
1017 for easier machine consumption. An entry in --numstat output looks like
1018 this:
1019
1020 1 2 README
1021 3 1 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile
1022
1023
1024 That is, from left to right:
1025
1026 1. the number of added lines;
1027
1028 2. a tab;
1029
1030 3. the number of deleted lines;
1031
1032 4. a tab;
1033
1034 5. pathname (possibly with rename/copy information);
1035
1036 6. a newline.
1037
1038 When -z output option is in effect, the output is formatted this way:
1039
1040 1 2 README NUL
1041 3 1 NUL arch/i386/Makefile NUL arch/x86/Makefile NUL
1042
1043
1044 That is:
1045
1046 1. the number of added lines;
1047
1048 2. a tab;
1049
1050 3. the number of deleted lines;
1051
1052 4. a tab;
1053
1054 5. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1055
1056 6. pathname in preimage;
1057
1058 7. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1059
1060 8. pathname in postimage (only exists if renamed/copied);
1061
1062 9. a NUL.
1063
1064 The extra NUL before the preimage path in renamed case is to allow
1065 scripts that read the output to tell if the current record being read
1066 is a single-path record or a rename/copy record without reading ahead.
1067 After reading added and deleted lines, reading up to NUL would yield
1068 the pathname, but if that is NUL, the record will show two paths.
1069
1071 Part of the git(1) suite
1072
1073
1074
1075Git 2.24.1 12/10/2019 GIT-DIFF-FILES(1)