1GIT-DIFF-FILES(1) Git Manual GIT-DIFF-FILES(1)
2
6 git-diff-files - Compares files in the working tree and the index
7
9 git diff-files [-q] [-0|-1|-2|-3|-c|--cc] [<common diff options>] [<path>...]
10
12 Compares the files in the working tree and the index. When paths are
13 specified, compares only those named paths. Otherwise all entries in
14 the index are compared. The output format is the same as for git
15 diff-index and git diff-tree.
16
18 -p, -u, --patch
19 Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
20 -s, --no-patch
22 Suppress diff output. Useful for commands like git show that show
23 the patch by default, or to cancel the effect of --patch.
24 -U<n>, --unified=<n>
26 Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual
27 three. Implies --patch. Implies -p.
28 --output=<file>
30 Output to a specific file instead of stdout.
31 --output-indicator-new=<char>, --output-indicator-old=<char>,
33 --output-indicator-context=<char>
34 Specify the character used to indicate new, old or context lines in
35 the generated patch. Normally they are +, - and ' ' respectively.
36 --raw
38 Generate the diff in raw format. This is the default.
39 --patch-with-raw
41 Synonym for -p --raw.
42 --indent-heuristic
44 Enable the heuristic that shifts diff hunk boundaries to make
45 patches easier to read. This is the default.
46 --no-indent-heuristic
48 Disable the indent heuristic.
49 --minimal
51 Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
52 produced.
53 --patience
55 Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
56 --histogram
58 Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.
59 --anchored=<text>
61 Generate a diff using the "anchored diff" algorithm.
62 This option may be specified more than once.
64 If a line exists in both the source and destination, exists only
66 once, and starts with this text, this algorithm attempts to prevent
67 it from appearing as a deletion or addition in the output. It uses
68 the "patience diff" algorithm internally.
69 --diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}
71 Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
72 default, myers
74 The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the
75 default.
76 minimal
78 Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
79 produced.
80 patience
82 Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
83 histogram
85 This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
86 low-occurrence common elements".
87 For instance, if you configured the diff.algorithm variable to a
89 non-default value and want to use the default one, then you have to
90 use --diff-algorithm=default option.
91 --stat[=<width>[,<name-width>[,<count>]]]
93 Generate a diffstat. By default, as much space as necessary will be
94 used for the filename part, and the rest for the graph part.
95 Maximum width defaults to terminal width, or 80 columns if not
96 connected to a terminal, and can be overridden by <width>. The
97 width of the filename part can be limited by giving another width
98 <name-width> after a comma. The width of the graph part can be
99 limited by using --stat-graph-width=<width> (affects all commands
100 generating a stat graph) or by setting diff.statGraphWidth=<width>
101 (does not affect git format-patch). By giving a third parameter
102 <count>, you can limit the output to the first <count> lines,
103 followed by ... if there are more.
104 These parameters can also be set individually with
106 --stat-width=<width>, --stat-name-width=<name-width> and
107 --stat-count=<count>.
108 --compact-summary
110 Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
111 file creations or deletions ("new" or "gone", optionally "+l" if
112 it’s a symlink) and mode changes ("+x" or "-x" for adding or
113 removing executable bit respectively) in diffstat. The information
114 is put between the filename part and the graph part. Implies
115 --stat.
116 --numstat
118 Similar to --stat, but shows number of added and deleted lines in
119 decimal notation and pathname without abbreviation, to make it more
120 machine friendly. For binary files, outputs two - instead of saying
121 0 0.
122 --shortstat
124 Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
125 number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
126 lines.
127 -X[<param1,param2,...>], --dirstat[=<param1,param2,...>]
129 Output the distribution of relative amount of changes for each
130 sub-directory. The behavior of --dirstat can be customized by
131 passing it a comma separated list of parameters. The defaults are
132 controlled by the diff.dirstat configuration variable (see git-
133 config(1)). The following parameters are available:
134 changes
136 Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have
137 been removed from the source, or added to the destination. This
138 ignores the amount of pure code movements within a file. In
139 other words, rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much
140 as other changes. This is the default behavior when no
141 parameter is given.
142 lines
144 Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based
145 diff analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts. (For
146 binary files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary files
147 have no natural concept of lines). This is a more expensive
148 --dirstat behavior than the changes behavior, but it does count
149 rearranged lines within a file as much as other changes. The
150 resulting output is consistent with what you get from the other
151 --*stat options.
152 files
154 Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files
155 changed. Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat
156 analysis. This is the computationally cheapest --dirstat
157 behavior, since it does not have to look at the file contents
158 at all.
159 cumulative
161 Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory as
162 well. Note that when using cumulative, the sum of the
163 percentages reported may exceed 100%. The default
164 (non-cumulative) behavior can be specified with the
165 noncumulative parameter.
166 <limit>
168 An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by
169 default). Directories contributing less than this percentage of
170 the changes are not shown in the output.
171 Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring
173 directories with less than 10% of the total amount of changed
174 files, and accumulating child directory counts in the parent
175 directories: --dirstat=files,10,cumulative.
176 --cumulative
178 Synonym for --dirstat=cumulative
179 --dirstat-by-file[=<param1,param2>...]
181 Synonym for --dirstat=files,param1,param2...
182 --summary
184 Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
185 creations, renames and mode changes.
186 --patch-with-stat
188 Synonym for -p --stat.
189 -z
191 When --raw, --numstat, --name-only or --name-status has been given,
192 do not munge pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
193 Without this option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
195 as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see
196 git-config(1)).
197 --name-only
199 Show only names of changed files.
200 --name-status
202 Show only names and status of changed files. See the description of
203 the --diff-filter option on what the status letters mean.
204 --submodule[=<format>]
206 Specify how differences in submodules are shown. When specifying
207 --submodule=short the short format is used. This format just shows
208 the names of the commits at the beginning and end of the range.
209 When --submodule or --submodule=log is specified, the log format is
210 used. This format lists the commits in the range like git-
211 submodule(1) summary does. When --submodule=diff is specified, the
212 diff format is used. This format shows an inline diff of the
213 changes in the submodule contents between the commit range.
214 Defaults to diff.submodule or the short format if the config option
215 is unset.
216 --color[=<when>]
218 Show colored diff. --color (i.e. without =<when>) is the same as
219 --color=always. <when> can be one of always, never, or auto.
220 --no-color
222 Turn off colored diff. It is the same as --color=never.
223 --color-moved[=<mode>]
225 Moved lines of code are colored differently. The <mode> defaults to
226 no if the option is not given and to zebra if the option with no
227 mode is given. The mode must be one of:
228 no
230 Moved lines are not highlighted.
231 default
233 Is a synonym for zebra. This may change to a more sensible mode
234 in the future.
235 plain
237 Any line that is added in one location and was removed in
238 another location will be colored with color.diff.newMoved.
239 Similarly color.diff.oldMoved will be used for removed lines
240 that are added somewhere else in the diff. This mode picks up
241 any moved line, but it is not very useful in a review to
242 determine if a block of code was moved without permutation.
243 blocks
245 Blocks of moved text of at least 20 alphanumeric characters are
246 detected greedily. The detected blocks are painted using either
247 the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color. Adjacent blocks cannot be
248 told apart.
249 zebra
251 Blocks of moved text are detected as in blocks mode. The blocks
252 are painted using either the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color or
253 color.diff.{old,new}MovedAlternative. The change between the
254 two colors indicates that a new block was detected.
255 dimmed-zebra
257 Similar to zebra, but additional dimming of uninteresting parts
258 of moved code is performed. The bordering lines of two adjacent
259 blocks are considered interesting, the rest is uninteresting.
260 dimmed_zebra is a deprecated synonym.
261 --no-color-moved
263 Turn off move detection. This can be used to override configuration
264 settings. It is the same as --color-moved=no.
265 --color-moved-ws=<modes>
267 This configures how whitespace is ignored when performing the move
268 detection for --color-moved. These modes can be given as a comma
269 separated list:
270 no
272 Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection.
273 ignore-space-at-eol
275 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
276 ignore-space-change
278 Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace
279 at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
280 whitespace characters to be equivalent.
281 ignore-all-space
283 Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores
284 differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
285 line has none.
286 allow-indentation-change
288 Initially ignore any whitespace in the move detection, then
289 group the moved code blocks only into a block if the change in
290 whitespace is the same per line. This is incompatible with the
291 other modes.
292 --no-color-moved-ws
294 Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection. This can
295 be used to override configuration settings. It is the same as
296 --color-moved-ws=no.
297 --word-diff[=<mode>]
299 Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words. By
300 default, words are delimited by whitespace; see --word-diff-regex
301 below. The <mode> defaults to plain, and must be one of:
302 color
304 Highlight changed words using only colors. Implies --color.
305 plain
307 Show words as [-removed-] and {+added+}. Makes no attempts to
308 escape the delimiters if they appear in the input, so the
309 output may be ambiguous.
310 porcelain
312 Use a special line-based format intended for script
313 consumption. Added/removed/unchanged runs are printed in the
314 usual unified diff format, starting with a +/-/` ` character at
315 the beginning of the line and extending to the end of the line.
316 Newlines in the input are represented by a tilde ~ on a line of
317 its own.
318 none
320 Disable word diff again.
321 Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to
323 highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
324 --word-diff-regex=<regex>
326 Use <regex> to decide what a word is, instead of considering runs
327 of non-whitespace to be a word. Also implies --word-diff unless it
328 was already enabled.
329 Every non-overlapping match of the <regex> is considered a word.
331 Anything between these matches is considered whitespace and
332 ignored(!) for the purposes of finding differences. You may want to
333 append |[^[:space:]] to your regular expression to make sure that
334 it matches all non-whitespace characters. A match that contains a
335 newline is silently truncated(!) at the newline.
336 For example, --word-diff-regex=. will treat each character as a
338 word and, correspondingly, show differences character by character.
339 The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration
341 option, see gitattributes(5) or git-config(1). Giving it explicitly
342 overrides any diff driver or configuration setting. Diff drivers
343 override configuration settings.
344 --color-words[=<regex>]
346 Equivalent to --word-diff=color plus (if a regex was specified)
347 --word-diff-regex=<regex>.
348 --no-renames
350 Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives
351 the default to do so.
352 --[no-]rename-empty
354 Whether to use empty blobs as rename source.
355 --check
357 Warn if changes introduce conflict markers or whitespace errors.
358 What are considered whitespace errors is controlled by
359 core.whitespace configuration. By default, trailing whitespaces
360 (including lines that consist solely of whitespaces) and a space
361 character that is immediately followed by a tab character inside
362 the initial indent of the line are considered whitespace errors.
363 Exits with non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible
364 with --exit-code.
365 --ws-error-highlight=<kind>
367 Highlight whitespace errors in the context, old or new lines of the
368 diff. Multiple values are separated by comma, none resets previous
369 values, default reset the list to new and all is a shorthand for
370 old,new,context. When this option is not given, and the
371 configuration variable diff.wsErrorHighlight is not set, only
372 whitespace errors in new lines are highlighted. The whitespace
373 errors are colored with color.diff.whitespace.
374 --full-index
376 Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full pre- and
377 post-image blob object names on the "index" line when generating
378 patch format output.
379 --binary
381 In addition to --full-index, output a binary diff that can be
382 applied with git-apply. Implies --patch.
383 --abbrev[=<n>]
385 Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in
386 diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show only a
387 partial prefix. This is independent of the --full-index option
388 above, which controls the diff-patch output format. Non default
389 number of digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
390 -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
392 Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
393 This serves two purposes:
394 It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a
396 file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
397 a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but
398 as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
399 insertion of everything new, and the number m controls this aspect
400 of the -B option (defaults to 60%). -B/70% specifies that less
401 than 30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to
402 consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch
403 will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
404 context lines).
405 When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as
407 the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that
408 disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number n controls
409 this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%). -B20% specifies
410 that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of
411 the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible
412 source of a rename to another file.
413 -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
415 Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a threshold on the
416 similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
417 file’s size). For example, -M90% means Git should consider a
418 delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t
419 changed. Without a % sign, the number is to be read as a fraction,
420 with a decimal point before it. I.e., -M5 becomes 0.5, and is thus
421 the same as -M50%. Similarly, -M05 is the same as -M5%. To limit
422 detection to exact renames, use -M100%. The default similarity
423 index is 50%.
424 -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
426 Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder. If
427 n is specified, it has the same meaning as for -M<n>.
428 --find-copies-harder
430 For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only if
431 the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset.
432 This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
433 for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for
434 large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C
435 option has the same effect.
436 -D, --irreversible-delete
438 Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
439 the diff between the preimage and /dev/null. The resulting patch is
440 not meant to be applied with patch or git apply; this is solely for
441 people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after the
442 change. In addition, the output obviously lacks enough information
443 to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually, hence the name of
444 the option.
445 When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion
447 part of a delete/create pair.
448 -l<num>
450 The -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n is the
451 number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents
452 rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy
453 targets exceeds the specified number.
454 --diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]
456 Select only files that are Added (A), Copied (C), Deleted (D),
457 Modified (M), Renamed (R), have their type (i.e. regular file,
458 symlink, submodule, ...) changed (T), are Unmerged (U), are Unknown
459 (X), or have had their pairing Broken (B). Any combination of the
460 filter characters (including none) can be used. When *
461 (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all paths are selected
462 if there is any file that matches other criteria in the comparison;
463 if there is no file that matches other criteria, nothing is
464 selected.
465 Also, these upper-case letters can be downcased to exclude. E.g.
467 --diff-filter=ad excludes added and deleted paths.
468 Note that not all diffs can feature all types. For instance, diffs
470 from the index to the working tree can never have Added entries
471 (because the set of paths included in the diff is limited by what
472 is in the index). Similarly, copied and renamed entries cannot
473 appear if detection for those types is disabled.
474 -S<string>
476 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
477 specified string (i.e. addition/deletion) in a file. Intended for
478 the scripter’s use.
479 It is useful when you’re looking for an exact block of code (like a
481 struct), and want to know the history of that block since it first
482 came into being: use the feature iteratively to feed the
483 interesting block in the preimage back into -S, and keep going
484 until you get the very first version of the block.
485 Binary files are searched as well.
487 -G<regex>
489 Look for differences whose patch text contains added/removed lines
490 that match <regex>.
491 To illustrate the difference between -S<regex> --pickaxe-regex and
493 -G<regex>, consider a commit with the following diff in the same
494 file:
495 + return frotz(nitfol, two->ptr, 1, 0);
497 ...
498 - hit = frotz(nitfol, mf2.ptr, 1, 0);
499 While git log -G"frotz\(nitfol" will show this commit, git log
501 -S"frotz\(nitfol" --pickaxe-regex will not (because the number of
502 occurrences of that string did not change).
503 Unless --text is supplied patches of binary files without a
505 textconv filter will be ignored.
506 See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more information.
508 --find-object=<object-id>
510 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
511 specified object. Similar to -S, just the argument is different in
512 that it doesn’t search for a specific string but for a specific
513 object id.
514 The object can be a blob or a submodule commit. It implies the -t
516 option in git-log to also find trees.
517 --pickaxe-all
519 When -S or -G finds a change, show all the changes in that
520 changeset, not just the files that contain the change in <string>.
521 --pickaxe-regex
523 Treat the <string> given to -S as an extended POSIX regular
524 expression to match.
525 -O<orderfile>
527 Control the order in which files appear in the output. This
528 overrides the diff.orderFile configuration variable (see git-
529 config(1)). To cancel diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.
530 The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in
532 <orderfile>. All files with pathnames that match the first pattern
533 are output first, all files with pathnames that match the second
534 pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on. All files
535 with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output last, as if
536 there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of the file. If
537 multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match the same pattern
538 but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each other
539 is the normal order.
540 <orderfile> is parsed as follows:
542 · Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators for
544 readability.
545 · Lines starting with a hash ("#") are ignored, so they can be
547 used for comments. Add a backslash ("\") to the beginning of
548 the pattern if it starts with a hash.
549 · Each other line contains a single pattern.
551 Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
553 fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also
554 matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
555 components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern "foo*bar"
556 matches "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not "foobarx".
557 -R
559 Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk
560 file to tree contents.
561 --relative[=<path>]
563 When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be told to
564 exclude changes outside the directory and show pathnames relative
565 to it with this option. When you are not in a subdirectory (e.g. in
566 a bare repository), you can name which subdirectory to make the
567 output relative to by giving a <path> as an argument.
568 -a, --text
570 Treat all files as text.
571 --ignore-cr-at-eol
573 Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.
574 --ignore-space-at-eol
576 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
577 -b, --ignore-space-change
579 Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace at
580 line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
581 whitespace characters to be equivalent.
582 -w, --ignore-all-space
584 Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
585 even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
586 --ignore-blank-lines
588 Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
589 --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
591 Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number of
592 lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other. Defaults
593 to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is unset.
594 -W, --function-context
596 Show whole surrounding functions of changes.
597 --exit-code
599 Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1). That is, it
600 exits with 1 if there were differences and 0 means no differences.
601 --quiet
603 Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
604 --ext-diff
606 Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
607 external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to use this
608 option with git-log(1) and friends.
609 --no-ext-diff
611 Disallow external diff drivers.
612 --textconv, --no-textconv
614 Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run when
615 comparing binary files. See gitattributes(5) for details. Because
616 textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the resulting
617 diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied. For
618 this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for git-
619 diff(1) and git-log(1), but not for git-format-patch(1) or diff
620 plumbing commands.
621 --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
623 Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
624 either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default.
625 Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either
626 contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the
627 commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any
628 settings of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
629 When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
630 they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for
631 modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work
632 tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the
633 superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using
634 "all" hides all changes to submodules.
635 --src-prefix=<prefix>
637 Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
638 --dst-prefix=<prefix>
640 Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
641 --no-prefix
643 Do not show any source or destination prefix.
644 --line-prefix=<prefix>
646 Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.
647 --ita-invisible-in-index
649 By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing
650 empty file in "git diff" and a new file in "git diff --cached".
651 This option makes the entry appear as a new file in "git diff" and
652 non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be reverted
653 with --ita-visible-in-index. Both options are experimental and
654 could be removed in future.
655 For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
657 gitdiffcore(7).
658 -1 --base, -2 --ours, -3 --theirs, -0
660 Diff against the "base" version, "our branch" or "their branch"
661 respectively. With these options, diffs for merged entries are not
662 shown.
663 The default is to diff against our branch (-2) and the cleanly
665 resolved paths. The option -0 can be given to omit diff output for
666 unmerged entries and just show "Unmerged".
667 -c, --cc
669 This compares stage 2 (our branch), stage 3 (their branch) and the
670 working tree file and outputs a combined diff, similar to the way
671 diff-tree shows a merge commit with these flags.
672 -q
674 Remain silent even on nonexistent files
675
677 The raw output format from "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree",
678 "git-diff-files" and "git diff --raw" are very similar.
679 These commands all compare two sets of things; what is compared
681 differs:
682 git-diff-index <tree-ish>
684 compares the <tree-ish> and the files on the filesystem.
685 git-diff-index --cached <tree-ish>
687 compares the <tree-ish> and the index.
688 git-diff-tree [-r] <tree-ish-1> <tree-ish-2> [<pattern>...]
690 compares the trees named by the two arguments.
691 git-diff-files [<pattern>...]
693 compares the index and the files on the filesystem.
694 The "git-diff-tree" command begins its output by printing the hash of
696 what is being compared. After that, all the commands print one output
697 line per changed file.
698 An output line is formatted this way:
700 in-place edit :100644 100644 bcd1234 0123456 M file0
702 copy-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 C68 file1 file2
703 rename-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 R86 file1 file3
704 create :000000 100644 0000000 1234567 A file4
705 delete :100644 000000 1234567 0000000 D file5
706 unmerged :000000 000000 0000000 0000000 U file6
707 That is, from the left to the right:
709 1. a colon.
711 2. mode for "src"; 000000 if creation or unmerged.
713 3. a space.
715 4. mode for "dst"; 000000 if deletion or unmerged.
717 5. a space.
719 6. sha1 for "src"; 0{40} if creation or unmerged.
721 7. a space.
723 8. sha1 for "dst"; 0{40} if creation, unmerged or "look at work tree".
725 9. a space.
727 10. status, followed by optional "score" number.
729 11. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used.
731 12. path for "src"
733 13. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used; only exists for C or R.
735 14. path for "dst"; only exists for C or R.
737 15. an LF or a NUL when -z option is used, to terminate the record.
739 Possible status letters are:
741 · A: addition of a file
743 · C: copy of a file into a new one
745 · D: deletion of a file
747 · M: modification of the contents or mode of a file
749 · R: renaming of a file
751 · T: change in the type of the file
753 · U: file is unmerged (you must complete the merge before it can be
755 committed)
756 · X: "unknown" change type (most probably a bug, please report it)
758 Status letters C and R are always followed by a score (denoting the
760 percentage of similarity between the source and target of the move or
761 copy). Status letter M may be followed by a score (denoting the
762 percentage of dissimilarity) for file rewrites.
763 <sha1> is shown as all 0’s if a file is new on the filesystem and it is
765 out of sync with the index.
766 Example:
768 :100644 100644 5be4a4a 0000000 M file.c
770 Without the -z option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
772 as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-
773 config(1)). Using -z the filename is output verbatim and the line is
774 terminated by a NUL byte.
775
777 "git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff --raw" can take -c or
778 --cc option to generate diff output also for merge commits. The output
779 differs from the format described above in the following way:
780 1. there is a colon for each parent
782 2. there are more "src" modes and "src" sha1
784 3. status is concatenated status characters for each parent
786 4. no optional "score" number
788 5. tab-separated pathname(s) of the file
790 For -c and --cc, only the destination or final path is shown even if
792 the file was renamed on any side of history. With --combined-all-paths,
793 the name of the path in each parent is shown followed by the name of
794 the path in the merge commit.
795 Examples for -c and --cc without --combined-all-paths:
797 ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM desc.c
799 ::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM bar.sh
800 ::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR phooey.c
801 Examples when --combined-all-paths added to either -c or --cc:
803 ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM desc.c desc.c desc.c
805 ::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM foo.sh bar.sh bar.sh
806 ::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR fooey.c fuey.c phooey.c
807 Note that combined diff lists only files which were modified from all
809 parents.
810
812 Running git-diff(1), git-log(1), git-show(1), git-diff-index(1), git-
813 diff-tree(1), or git-diff-files(1) with the -p option produces patch
814 text. You can customize the creation of patch text via the
815 GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS environment variables.
816 What the -p option produces is slightly different from the traditional
818 diff format:
819 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header that looks like this:
821 diff --git a/file1 b/file2
823 The a/ and b/ filenames are the same unless rename/copy is
825 involved. Especially, even for a creation or a deletion, /dev/null
826 is not used in place of the a/ or b/ filenames.
827 When rename/copy is involved, file1 and file2 show the name of the
829 source file of the rename/copy and the name of the file that
830 rename/copy produces, respectively.
831 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines:
833 old mode <mode>
835 new mode <mode>
836 deleted file mode <mode>
837 new file mode <mode>
838 copy from <path>
839 copy to <path>
840 rename from <path>
841 rename to <path>
842 similarity index <number>
843 dissimilarity index <number>
844 index <hash>..<hash> <mode>
845 File modes are printed as 6-digit octal numbers including the file
847 type and file permission bits.
848 Path names in extended headers do not include the a/ and b/
850 prefixes.
851 The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines, and the
853 dissimilarity index is the percentage of changed lines. It is a
854 rounded down integer, followed by a percent sign. The similarity
855 index value of 100% is thus reserved for two equal files, while
856 100% dissimilarity means that no line from the old file made it
857 into the new one.
858 The index line includes the blob object names before and after the
860 change. The <mode> is included if the file mode does not change;
861 otherwise, separate lines indicate the old and the new mode.
862 3. Pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the
864 configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).
865 4. All the file1 files in the output refer to files before the commit,
867 and all the file2 files refer to files after the commit. It is
868 incorrect to apply each change to each file sequentially. For
869 example, this patch will swap a and b:
870 diff --git a/a b/b
872 rename from a
873 rename to b
874 diff --git a/b b/a
875 rename from b
876 rename to a
877
879 Any diff-generating command can take the -c or --cc option to produce a
880 combined diff when showing a merge. This is the default format when
881 showing merges with git-diff(1) or git-show(1). Note also that you can
882 give the -m option to any of these commands to force generation of
883 diffs with individual parents of a merge.
884 A "combined diff" format looks like this:
886 diff --combined describe.c
888 index fabadb8,cc95eb0..4866510
889 --- a/describe.c
890 +++ b/describe.c
891 @@@ -98,20 -98,12 +98,20 @@@
892 return (a_date > b_date) ? -1 : (a_date == b_date) ? 0 : 1;
893 }
894 - static void describe(char *arg)
896 -static void describe(struct commit *cmit, int last_one)
897 ++static void describe(char *arg, int last_one)
898 {
899 + unsigned char sha1[20];
900 + struct commit *cmit;
901 struct commit_list *list;
902 static int initialized = 0;
903 struct commit_name *n;
904 + if (get_sha1(arg, sha1) < 0)
906 + usage(describe_usage);
907 + cmit = lookup_commit_reference(sha1);
908 + if (!cmit)
909 + usage(describe_usage);
910 +
911 if (!initialized) {
912 initialized = 1;
913 for_each_ref(get_name);
914 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header, that looks like this (when
916 the -c option is used):
917 diff --combined file
919 or like this (when the --cc option is used):
921 diff --cc file
923 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines (this example
925 shows a merge with two parents):
926 index <hash>,<hash>..<hash>
928 mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode>
929 new file mode <mode>
930 deleted file mode <mode>,<mode>
931 The mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode> line appears only if at least one of
933 the <mode> is different from the rest. Extended headers with
934 information about detected contents movement (renames and copying
935 detection) are designed to work with diff of two <tree-ish> and are
936 not used by combined diff format.
937 3. It is followed by two-line from-file/to-file header
939 --- a/file
941 +++ b/file
942 Similar to two-line header for traditional unified diff format,
944 /dev/null is used to signal created or deleted files.
945 However, if the --combined-all-paths option is provided, instead of
947 a two-line from-file/to-file you get a N+1 line from-file/to-file
948 header, where N is the number of parents in the merge commit
949 --- a/file
951 --- a/file
952 --- a/file
953 +++ b/file
954 This extended format can be useful if rename or copy detection is
956 active, to allow you to see the original name of the file in
957 different parents.
958 4. Chunk header format is modified to prevent people from accidentally
960 feeding it to patch -p1. Combined diff format was created for
961 review of merge commit changes, and was not meant to be applied.
962 The change is similar to the change in the extended index header:
963 @@@ <from-file-range> <from-file-range> <to-file-range> @@@
965 There are (number of parents + 1) @ characters in the chunk header
967 for combined diff format.
968 Unlike the traditional unified diff format, which shows two files A and
970 B with a single column that has - (minus — appears in A but removed in
971 B), + (plus — missing in A but added to B), or " " (space — unchanged)
972 prefix, this format compares two or more files file1, file2,... with
973 one file X, and shows how X differs from each of fileN. One column for
974 each of fileN is prepended to the output line to note how X’s line is
975 different from it.
976 A - character in the column N means that the line appears in fileN but
978 it does not appear in the result. A + character in the column N means
979 that the line appears in the result, and fileN does not have that line
980 (in other words, the line was added, from the point of view of that
981 parent).
982 In the above example output, the function signature was changed from
984 both files (hence two - removals from both file1 and file2, plus ++ to
985 mean one line that was added does not appear in either file1 or file2).
986 Also eight other lines are the same from file1 but do not appear in
987 file2 (hence prefixed with +).
988 When shown by git diff-tree -c, it compares the parents of a merge
990 commit with the merge result (i.e. file1..fileN are the parents). When
991 shown by git diff-files -c, it compares the two unresolved merge
992 parents with the working tree file (i.e. file1 is stage 2 aka "our
993 version", file2 is stage 3 aka "their version").
994
996 The --summary option describes newly added, deleted, renamed and copied
997 files. The --stat option adds diffstat(1) graph to the output. These
998 options can be combined with other options, such as -p, and are meant
999 for human consumption.
1000 When showing a change that involves a rename or a copy, --stat output
1002 formats the pathnames compactly by combining common prefix and suffix
1003 of the pathnames. For example, a change that moves arch/i386/Makefile
1004 to arch/x86/Makefile while modifying 4 lines will be shown like this:
1005 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile | 4 +--
1007 The --numstat option gives the diffstat(1) information but is designed
1009 for easier machine consumption. An entry in --numstat output looks like
1010 this:
1011 1 2 README
1013 3 1 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile
1014 That is, from left to right:
1016 1. the number of added lines;
1018 2. a tab;
1020 3. the number of deleted lines;
1022 4. a tab;
1024 5. pathname (possibly with rename/copy information);
1026 6. a newline.
1028 When -z output option is in effect, the output is formatted this way:
1030 1 2 README NUL
1032 3 1 NUL arch/i386/Makefile NUL arch/x86/Makefile NUL
1033 That is:
1035 1. the number of added lines;
1037 2. a tab;
1039 3. the number of deleted lines;
1041 4. a tab;
1043 5. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1045 6. pathname in preimage;
1047 7. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1049 8. pathname in postimage (only exists if renamed/copied);
1051 9. a NUL.
1053 The extra NUL before the preimage path in renamed case is to allow
1055 scripts that read the output to tell if the current record being read
1056 is a single-path record or a rename/copy record without reading ahead.
1057 After reading added and deleted lines, reading up to NUL would yield
1058 the pathname, but if that is NUL, the record will show two paths.
1059
1061 Part of the git(1) suite
1062Git 2.26.2 2020-04-20 GIT-DIFF-FILES(1)