1GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1) Git Manual GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1)
2
6 git-diff-index - Compare a tree to the working tree or index
7
9 git diff-index [-m] [--cached] [--merge-base] [<common diff options>] <tree-ish> [<path>...]
10
12 Compares the content and mode of the blobs found in a tree object with
13 the corresponding tracked files in the working tree, or with the
14 corresponding paths in the index. When <path> arguments are present,
15 compares only paths matching those patterns. Otherwise all tracked
16 files are compared.
17
19 -p, -u, --patch
20 Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
21 -s, --no-patch
23 Suppress diff output. Useful for commands like git show that show
24 the patch by default, or to cancel the effect of --patch.
25 -U<n>, --unified=<n>
27 Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual
28 three. Implies --patch.
29 --output=<file>
31 Output to a specific file instead of stdout.
32 --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 --raw
39 Generate the diff in raw format. This is the default.
40 --patch-with-raw
42 Synonym for -p --raw.
43 --indent-heuristic
45 Enable the heuristic that shifts diff hunk boundaries to make
46 patches easier to read. This is the default.
47 --no-indent-heuristic
49 Disable the indent heuristic.
50 --minimal
52 Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
53 produced.
54 --patience
56 Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
57 --histogram
59 Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.
60 --anchored=<text>
62 Generate a diff using the "anchored diff" algorithm.
63 This option may be specified more than once.
65 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 --diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}
72 Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
73 default, myers
75 The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the
76 default.
77 minimal
79 Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
80 produced.
81 patience
83 Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
84 histogram
86 This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
87 low-occurrence common elements".
88 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 --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 These parameters can also be set individually with
107 --stat-width=<width>, --stat-name-width=<name-width> and
108 --stat-count=<count>.
109 --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 --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 --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 -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 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 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 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 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 <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 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 --cumulative
179 Synonym for --dirstat=cumulative
180 --dirstat-by-file[=<param1,param2>...]
182 Synonym for --dirstat=files,param1,param2...
183 --summary
185 Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
186 creations, renames and mode changes.
187 --patch-with-stat
189 Synonym for -p --stat.
190 -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 Without this option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
196 as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see
197 git-config(1)).
198 --name-only
200 Show only names of changed files.
201 --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 --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 --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 --no-color
223 Turn off colored diff. It is the same as --color=never.
224 --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 no
231 Moved lines are not highlighted.
232 default
234 Is a synonym for zebra. This may change to a more sensible mode
235 in the future.
236 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 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 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 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 --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 --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 no
273 Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection.
274 ignore-space-at-eol
276 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
277 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 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 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 --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 --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 color
305 Highlight changed words using only colors. Implies --color.
306 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 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 none
321 Disable word diff again.
322 Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to
324 highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
325 --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 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 For example, --word-diff-regex=. will treat each character as a
339 word and, correspondingly, show differences character by character.
340 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 --color-words[=<regex>]
347 Equivalent to --word-diff=color plus (if a regex was specified)
348 --word-diff-regex=<regex>.
349 --no-renames
351 Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives
352 the default to do so.
353 --[no-]rename-empty
355 Whether to use empty blobs as rename source.
356 --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 --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 --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 --binary
382 In addition to --full-index, output a binary diff that can be
383 applied with git-apply. Implies --patch.
384 --abbrev[=<n>]
386 Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in
387 diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show the
388 shortest prefix that is at least <n> hexdigits long that uniquely
389 refers the object. In diff-patch output format, --full-index takes
390 higher precedence, i.e. if --full-index is specified, full blob
391 names will be shown regardless of --abbrev. Non default number of
392 digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
393 -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
395 Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
396 This serves two purposes:
397 It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a
399 file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
400 a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but
401 as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
402 insertion of everything new, and the number m controls this aspect
403 of the -B option (defaults to 60%). -B/70% specifies that less
404 than 30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to
405 consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch
406 will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
407 context lines).
408 When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as
410 the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that
411 disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number n controls
412 this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%). -B20% specifies
413 that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of
414 the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible
415 source of a rename to another file.
416 -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
418 Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a threshold on the
419 similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
420 file’s size). For example, -M90% means Git should consider a
421 delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t
422 changed. Without a % sign, the number is to be read as a fraction,
423 with a decimal point before it. I.e., -M5 becomes 0.5, and is thus
424 the same as -M50%. Similarly, -M05 is the same as -M5%. To limit
425 detection to exact renames, use -M100%. The default similarity
426 index is 50%.
427 -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
429 Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder. If
430 n is specified, it has the same meaning as for -M<n>.
431 --find-copies-harder
433 For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only if
434 the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset.
435 This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
436 for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for
437 large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C
438 option has the same effect.
439 -D, --irreversible-delete
441 Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
442 the diff between the preimage and /dev/null. The resulting patch is
443 not meant to be applied with patch or git apply; this is solely for
444 people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after the
445 change. In addition, the output obviously lacks enough information
446 to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually, hence the name of
447 the option.
448 When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion
450 part of a delete/create pair.
451 -l<num>
453 The -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n is the
454 number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents
455 rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy
456 targets exceeds the specified number.
457 --diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]
459 Select only files that are Added (A), Copied (C), Deleted (D),
460 Modified (M), Renamed (R), have their type (i.e. regular file,
461 symlink, submodule, ...) changed (T), are Unmerged (U), are Unknown
462 (X), or have had their pairing Broken (B). Any combination of the
463 filter characters (including none) can be used. When *
464 (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all paths are selected
465 if there is any file that matches other criteria in the comparison;
466 if there is no file that matches other criteria, nothing is
467 selected.
468 Also, these upper-case letters can be downcased to exclude. E.g.
470 --diff-filter=ad excludes added and deleted paths.
471 Note that not all diffs can feature all types. For instance, diffs
473 from the index to the working tree can never have Added entries
474 (because the set of paths included in the diff is limited by what
475 is in the index). Similarly, copied and renamed entries cannot
476 appear if detection for those types is disabled.
477 -S<string>
479 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
480 specified string (i.e. addition/deletion) in a file. Intended for
481 the scripter’s use.
482 It is useful when you’re looking for an exact block of code (like a
484 struct), and want to know the history of that block since it first
485 came into being: use the feature iteratively to feed the
486 interesting block in the preimage back into -S, and keep going
487 until you get the very first version of the block.
488 Binary files are searched as well.
490 -G<regex>
492 Look for differences whose patch text contains added/removed lines
493 that match <regex>.
494 To illustrate the difference between -S<regex> --pickaxe-regex and
496 -G<regex>, consider a commit with the following diff in the same
497 file:
498 + return frotz(nitfol, two->ptr, 1, 0);
500 ...
501 - hit = frotz(nitfol, mf2.ptr, 1, 0);
502 While git log -G"frotz\(nitfol" will show this commit, git log
504 -S"frotz\(nitfol" --pickaxe-regex will not (because the number of
505 occurrences of that string did not change).
506 Unless --text is supplied patches of binary files without a
508 textconv filter will be ignored.
509 See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more information.
511 --find-object=<object-id>
513 Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
514 specified object. Similar to -S, just the argument is different in
515 that it doesn’t search for a specific string but for a specific
516 object id.
517 The object can be a blob or a submodule commit. It implies the -t
519 option in git-log to also find trees.
520 --pickaxe-all
522 When -S or -G finds a change, show all the changes in that
523 changeset, not just the files that contain the change in <string>.
524 --pickaxe-regex
526 Treat the <string> given to -S as an extended POSIX regular
527 expression to match.
528 -O<orderfile>
530 Control the order in which files appear in the output. This
531 overrides the diff.orderFile configuration variable (see git-
532 config(1)). To cancel diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.
533 The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in
535 <orderfile>. All files with pathnames that match the first pattern
536 are output first, all files with pathnames that match the second
537 pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on. All files
538 with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output last, as if
539 there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of the file. If
540 multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match the same pattern
541 but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each other
542 is the normal order.
543 <orderfile> is parsed as follows:
545 · Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators for
547 readability.
548 · Lines starting with a hash ("#") are ignored, so they can be
550 used for comments. Add a backslash ("\") to the beginning of
551 the pattern if it starts with a hash.
552 · Each other line contains a single pattern.
554 Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
556 fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also
557 matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
558 components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern "foo*bar"
559 matches "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not "foobarx".
560 -R
562 Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk
563 file to tree contents.
564 --relative[=<path>], --no-relative
566 When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be told to
567 exclude changes outside the directory and show pathnames relative
568 to it with this option. When you are not in a subdirectory (e.g. in
569 a bare repository), you can name which subdirectory to make the
570 output relative to by giving a <path> as an argument.
571 --no-relative can be used to countermand both diff.relative config
572 option and previous --relative.
573 -a, --text
575 Treat all files as text.
576 --ignore-cr-at-eol
578 Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.
579 --ignore-space-at-eol
581 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
582 -b, --ignore-space-change
584 Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace at
585 line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
586 whitespace characters to be equivalent.
587 -w, --ignore-all-space
589 Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
590 even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
591 --ignore-blank-lines
593 Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
594 -I<regex>, --ignore-matching-lines=<regex>
596 Ignore changes whose all lines match <regex>. This option may be
597 specified more than once.
598 --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
600 Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number of
601 lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other. Defaults
602 to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is unset.
603 -W, --function-context
605 Show whole function as context lines for each change. The function
606 names are determined in the same way as git diff works out patch
607 hunk headers (see Defining a custom hunk-header in
608 gitattributes(5)).
609 --exit-code
611 Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1). That is, it
612 exits with 1 if there were differences and 0 means no differences.
613 --quiet
615 Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
616 --ext-diff
618 Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
619 external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to use this
620 option with git-log(1) and friends.
621 --no-ext-diff
623 Disallow external diff drivers.
624 --textconv, --no-textconv
626 Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run when
627 comparing binary files. See gitattributes(5) for details. Because
628 textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the resulting
629 diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied. For
630 this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for git-
631 diff(1) and git-log(1), but not for git-format-patch(1) or diff
632 plumbing commands.
633 --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
635 Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
636 either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default.
637 Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either
638 contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the
639 commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any
640 settings of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
641 When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
642 they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for
643 modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work
644 tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the
645 superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using
646 "all" hides all changes to submodules.
647 --src-prefix=<prefix>
649 Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
650 --dst-prefix=<prefix>
652 Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
653 --no-prefix
655 Do not show any source or destination prefix.
656 --line-prefix=<prefix>
658 Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.
659 --ita-invisible-in-index
661 By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing
662 empty file in "git diff" and a new file in "git diff --cached".
663 This option makes the entry appear as a new file in "git diff" and
664 non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be reverted
665 with --ita-visible-in-index. Both options are experimental and
666 could be removed in future.
667 For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
669 gitdiffcore(7).
670 <tree-ish>
672 The id of a tree object to diff against.
673 --cached
675 Do not consider the on-disk file at all.
676 --merge-base
678 Instead of comparing <tree-ish> directly, use the merge base
679 between <tree-ish> and HEAD instead. <tree-ish> must be a commit.
680 -m
682 By default, files recorded in the index but not checked out are
683 reported as deleted. This flag makes git diff-index say that all
684 non-checked-out files are up to date.
685
687 The raw output format from "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree",
688 "git-diff-files" and "git diff --raw" are very similar.
689 These commands all compare two sets of things; what is compared
691 differs:
692 git-diff-index <tree-ish>
694 compares the <tree-ish> and the files on the filesystem.
695 git-diff-index --cached <tree-ish>
697 compares the <tree-ish> and the index.
698 git-diff-tree [-r] <tree-ish-1> <tree-ish-2> [<pattern>...]
700 compares the trees named by the two arguments.
701 git-diff-files [<pattern>...]
703 compares the index and the files on the filesystem.
704 The "git-diff-tree" command begins its output by printing the hash of
706 what is being compared. After that, all the commands print one output
707 line per changed file.
708 An output line is formatted this way:
710 in-place edit :100644 100644 bcd1234 0123456 M file0
712 copy-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 C68 file1 file2
713 rename-edit :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 R86 file1 file3
714 create :000000 100644 0000000 1234567 A file4
715 delete :100644 000000 1234567 0000000 D file5
716 unmerged :000000 000000 0000000 0000000 U file6
717 That is, from the left to the right:
719 1. a colon.
721 2. mode for "src"; 000000 if creation or unmerged.
723 3. a space.
725 4. mode for "dst"; 000000 if deletion or unmerged.
727 5. a space.
729 6. sha1 for "src"; 0{40} if creation or unmerged.
731 7. a space.
733 8. sha1 for "dst"; 0{40} if creation, unmerged or "look at work tree".
735 9. a space.
737 10. status, followed by optional "score" number.
739 11. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used.
741 12. path for "src"
743 13. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used; only exists for C or R.
745 14. path for "dst"; only exists for C or R.
747 15. an LF or a NUL when -z option is used, to terminate the record.
749 Possible status letters are:
751 · A: addition of a file
753 · C: copy of a file into a new one
755 · D: deletion of a file
757 · M: modification of the contents or mode of a file
759 · R: renaming of a file
761 · T: change in the type of the file
763 · U: file is unmerged (you must complete the merge before it can be
765 committed)
766 · X: "unknown" change type (most probably a bug, please report it)
768 Status letters C and R are always followed by a score (denoting the
770 percentage of similarity between the source and target of the move or
771 copy). Status letter M may be followed by a score (denoting the
772 percentage of dissimilarity) for file rewrites.
773 <sha1> is shown as all 0’s if a file is new on the filesystem and it is
775 out of sync with the index.
776 Example:
778 :100644 100644 5be4a4a 0000000 M file.c
780 Without the -z option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
782 as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-
783 config(1)). Using -z the filename is output verbatim and the line is
784 terminated by a NUL byte.
785
787 "git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff --raw" can take -c or
788 --cc option to generate diff output also for merge commits. The output
789 differs from the format described above in the following way:
790 1. there is a colon for each parent
792 2. there are more "src" modes and "src" sha1
794 3. status is concatenated status characters for each parent
796 4. no optional "score" number
798 5. tab-separated pathname(s) of the file
800 For -c and --cc, only the destination or final path is shown even if
802 the file was renamed on any side of history. With --combined-all-paths,
803 the name of the path in each parent is shown followed by the name of
804 the path in the merge commit.
805 Examples for -c and --cc without --combined-all-paths:
807 ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM desc.c
809 ::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM bar.sh
810 ::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR phooey.c
811 Examples when --combined-all-paths added to either -c or --cc:
813 ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM desc.c desc.c desc.c
815 ::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM foo.sh bar.sh bar.sh
816 ::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR fooey.c fuey.c phooey.c
817 Note that combined diff lists only files which were modified from all
819 parents.
820
822 Running git-diff(1), git-log(1), git-show(1), git-diff-index(1), git-
823 diff-tree(1), or git-diff-files(1) with the -p option produces patch
824 text. You can customize the creation of patch text via the
825 GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS environment variables (see
826 git(1)).
827 What the -p option produces is slightly different from the traditional
829 diff format:
830 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header that looks like this:
832 diff --git a/file1 b/file2
834 The a/ and b/ filenames are the same unless rename/copy is
836 involved. Especially, even for a creation or a deletion, /dev/null
837 is not used in place of the a/ or b/ filenames.
838 When rename/copy is involved, file1 and file2 show the name of the
840 source file of the rename/copy and the name of the file that
841 rename/copy produces, respectively.
842 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines:
844 old mode <mode>
846 new mode <mode>
847 deleted file mode <mode>
848 new file mode <mode>
849 copy from <path>
850 copy to <path>
851 rename from <path>
852 rename to <path>
853 similarity index <number>
854 dissimilarity index <number>
855 index <hash>..<hash> <mode>
856 File modes are printed as 6-digit octal numbers including the file
858 type and file permission bits.
859 Path names in extended headers do not include the a/ and b/
861 prefixes.
862 The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines, and the
864 dissimilarity index is the percentage of changed lines. It is a
865 rounded down integer, followed by a percent sign. The similarity
866 index value of 100% is thus reserved for two equal files, while
867 100% dissimilarity means that no line from the old file made it
868 into the new one.
869 The index line includes the blob object names before and after the
871 change. The <mode> is included if the file mode does not change;
872 otherwise, separate lines indicate the old and the new mode.
873 3. Pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the
875 configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).
876 4. All the file1 files in the output refer to files before the commit,
878 and all the file2 files refer to files after the commit. It is
879 incorrect to apply each change to each file sequentially. For
880 example, this patch will swap a and b:
881 diff --git a/a b/b
883 rename from a
884 rename to b
885 diff --git a/b b/a
886 rename from b
887 rename to a
888
890 Any diff-generating command can take the -c or --cc option to produce a
891 combined diff when showing a merge. This is the default format when
892 showing merges with git-diff(1) or git-show(1). Note also that you can
893 give the -m option to any of these commands to force generation of
894 diffs with individual parents of a merge.
895 A "combined diff" format looks like this:
897 diff --combined describe.c
899 index fabadb8,cc95eb0..4866510
900 --- a/describe.c
901 +++ b/describe.c
902 @@@ -98,20 -98,12 +98,20 @@@
903 return (a_date > b_date) ? -1 : (a_date == b_date) ? 0 : 1;
904 }
905 - static void describe(char *arg)
907 -static void describe(struct commit *cmit, int last_one)
908 ++static void describe(char *arg, int last_one)
909 {
910 + unsigned char sha1[20];
911 + struct commit *cmit;
912 struct commit_list *list;
913 static int initialized = 0;
914 struct commit_name *n;
915 + if (get_sha1(arg, sha1) < 0)
917 + usage(describe_usage);
918 + cmit = lookup_commit_reference(sha1);
919 + if (!cmit)
920 + usage(describe_usage);
921 +
922 if (!initialized) {
923 initialized = 1;
924 for_each_ref(get_name);
925 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header, that looks like this (when
927 the -c option is used):
928 diff --combined file
930 or like this (when the --cc option is used):
932 diff --cc file
934 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines (this example
936 shows a merge with two parents):
937 index <hash>,<hash>..<hash>
939 mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode>
940 new file mode <mode>
941 deleted file mode <mode>,<mode>
942 The mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode> line appears only if at least one of
944 the <mode> is different from the rest. Extended headers with
945 information about detected contents movement (renames and copying
946 detection) are designed to work with diff of two <tree-ish> and are
947 not used by combined diff format.
948 3. It is followed by two-line from-file/to-file header
950 --- a/file
952 +++ b/file
953 Similar to two-line header for traditional unified diff format,
955 /dev/null is used to signal created or deleted files.
956 However, if the --combined-all-paths option is provided, instead of
958 a two-line from-file/to-file you get a N+1 line from-file/to-file
959 header, where N is the number of parents in the merge commit
960 --- a/file
962 --- a/file
963 --- a/file
964 +++ b/file
965 This extended format can be useful if rename or copy detection is
967 active, to allow you to see the original name of the file in
968 different parents.
969 4. Chunk header format is modified to prevent people from accidentally
971 feeding it to patch -p1. Combined diff format was created for
972 review of merge commit changes, and was not meant to be applied.
973 The change is similar to the change in the extended index header:
974 @@@ <from-file-range> <from-file-range> <to-file-range> @@@
976 There are (number of parents + 1) @ characters in the chunk header
978 for combined diff format.
979 Unlike the traditional unified diff format, which shows two files A and
981 B with a single column that has - (minus — appears in A but removed in
982 B), + (plus — missing in A but added to B), or " " (space — unchanged)
983 prefix, this format compares two or more files file1, file2,... with
984 one file X, and shows how X differs from each of fileN. One column for
985 each of fileN is prepended to the output line to note how X’s line is
986 different from it.
987 A - character in the column N means that the line appears in fileN but
989 it does not appear in the result. A + character in the column N means
990 that the line appears in the result, and fileN does not have that line
991 (in other words, the line was added, from the point of view of that
992 parent).
993 In the above example output, the function signature was changed from
995 both files (hence two - removals from both file1 and file2, plus ++ to
996 mean one line that was added does not appear in either file1 or file2).
997 Also eight other lines are the same from file1 but do not appear in
998 file2 (hence prefixed with +).
999 When shown by git diff-tree -c, it compares the parents of a merge
1001 commit with the merge result (i.e. file1..fileN are the parents). When
1002 shown by git diff-files -c, it compares the two unresolved merge
1003 parents with the working tree file (i.e. file1 is stage 2 aka "our
1004 version", file2 is stage 3 aka "their version").
1005
1007 The --summary option describes newly added, deleted, renamed and copied
1008 files. The --stat option adds diffstat(1) graph to the output. These
1009 options can be combined with other options, such as -p, and are meant
1010 for human consumption.
1011 When showing a change that involves a rename or a copy, --stat output
1013 formats the pathnames compactly by combining common prefix and suffix
1014 of the pathnames. For example, a change that moves arch/i386/Makefile
1015 to arch/x86/Makefile while modifying 4 lines will be shown like this:
1016 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile | 4 +--
1018 The --numstat option gives the diffstat(1) information but is designed
1020 for easier machine consumption. An entry in --numstat output looks like
1021 this:
1022 1 2 README
1024 3 1 arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile
1025 That is, from left to right:
1027 1. the number of added lines;
1029 2. a tab;
1031 3. the number of deleted lines;
1033 4. a tab;
1035 5. pathname (possibly with rename/copy information);
1037 6. a newline.
1039 When -z output option is in effect, the output is formatted this way:
1041 1 2 README NUL
1043 3 1 NUL arch/i386/Makefile NUL arch/x86/Makefile NUL
1044 That is:
1046 1. the number of added lines;
1048 2. a tab;
1050 3. the number of deleted lines;
1052 4. a tab;
1054 5. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1056 6. pathname in preimage;
1058 7. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
1060 8. pathname in postimage (only exists if renamed/copied);
1062 9. a NUL.
1064 The extra NUL before the preimage path in renamed case is to allow
1066 scripts that read the output to tell if the current record being read
1067 is a single-path record or a rename/copy record without reading ahead.
1068 After reading added and deleted lines, reading up to NUL would yield
1069 the pathname, but if that is NUL, the record will show two paths.
1070
1072 You can choose whether you want to trust the index file entirely (using
1073 the --cached flag) or ask the diff logic to show any files that don’t
1074 match the stat state as being "tentatively changed". Both of these
1075 operations are very useful indeed.
1076
1078 If --cached is specified, it allows you to ask:
1079 show me the differences between HEAD and the current index
1081 contents (the ones I'd write using 'git write-tree')
1082 For example, let’s say that you have worked on your working directory,
1084 updated some files in the index and are ready to commit. You want to
1085 see exactly what you are going to commit, without having to write a new
1086 tree object and compare it that way, and to do that, you just do
1087 git diff-index --cached HEAD
1089 Example: let’s say I had renamed commit.c to git-commit.c, and I had
1091 done an update-index to make that effective in the index file. git
1092 diff-files wouldn’t show anything at all, since the index file matches
1093 my working directory. But doing a git diff-index does:
1094 torvalds@ppc970:~/git> git diff-index --cached HEAD
1096 -100644 blob 4161aecc6700a2eb579e842af0b7f22b98443f74 commit.c
1097 +100644 blob 4161aecc6700a2eb579e842af0b7f22b98443f74 git-commit.c
1098 You can see easily that the above is a rename.
1100 In fact, git diff-index --cached should always be entirely equivalent
1102 to actually doing a git write-tree and comparing that. Except this one
1103 is much nicer for the case where you just want to check where you are.
1104 So doing a git diff-index --cached is basically very useful when you
1106 are asking yourself "what have I already marked for being committed,
1107 and what’s the difference to a previous tree".
1108
1110 The "non-cached" mode takes a different approach, and is potentially
1111 the more useful of the two in that what it does can’t be emulated with
1112 a git write-tree + git diff-tree. Thus that’s the default mode. The
1113 non-cached version asks the question:
1114 show me the differences between HEAD and the currently checked out
1116 tree - index contents _and_ files that aren't up to date
1117 which is obviously a very useful question too, since that tells you
1119 what you could commit. Again, the output matches the git diff-tree -r
1120 output to a tee, but with a twist.
1121 The twist is that if some file doesn’t match the index, we don’t have a
1123 backing store thing for it, and we use the magic "all-zero" sha1 to
1124 show that. So let’s say that you have edited kernel/sched.c, but have
1125 not actually done a git update-index on it yet - there is no "object"
1126 associated with the new state, and you get:
1127 torvalds@ppc970:~/v2.6/linux> git diff-index --abbrev HEAD
1129 :100644 100664 7476bb... 000000... kernel/sched.c
1130 i.e., it shows that the tree has changed, and that kernel/sched.c is
1132 not up to date and may contain new stuff. The all-zero sha1 means that
1133 to get the real diff, you need to look at the object in the working
1134 directory directly rather than do an object-to-object diff.
1135 Note
1137 As with other commands of this type, git diff-index does not
1138 actually look at the contents of the file at all. So maybe
1139 kernel/sched.c hasn’t actually changed, and it’s just that you
1140 touched it. In either case, it’s a note that you need to git
1141 update-index it to make the index be in sync.
1142 Note
1144 You can have a mixture of files show up as "has been updated" and
1145 "is still dirty in the working directory" together. You can always
1146 tell which file is in which state, since the "has been updated"
1147 ones show a valid sha1, and the "not in sync with the index" ones
1148 will always have the special all-zero sha1.
1149
1151 Part of the git(1) suite
1152Git 2.30.2 2021-03-08 GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1)