NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | RAW OUTPUT FORMAT | DIFF FORMAT FOR MERGES | GENERATING PATCHES WITH -P | COMBINED DIFF FORMAT | OTHER DIFF FORMATS | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | GIT | COLOPHON

GIT-DIFF(1)                      Git Manual                      GIT-DIFF(1)

NAME         top

       git-diff - Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc

SYNOPSIS         top

       git diff [options] [<commit>] [--] [<path>...]
       git diff [options] --cached [<commit>] [--] [<path>...]
       git diff [options] <commit> <commit> [--] [<path>...]
       git diff [options] <blob> <blob>
       git diff [options] [--no-index] [--] <path> <path>

DESCRIPTION         top

       Show changes between the working tree and the index or a tree,
       changes between the index and a tree, changes between two trees,
       changes between two blob objects, or changes between two files on
       disk.
       git diff [--options] [--] [<path>...]
           This form is to view the changes you made relative to the index
           (staging area for the next commit). In other words, the
           differences are what you could tell Git to further add to the
           index but you still haven’t. You can stage these changes by using
           git-add(1).
       git diff --no-index [--options] [--] [<path>...]
           This form is to compare the given two paths on the filesystem.
           You can omit the --no-index option when running the command in a
           working tree controlled by Git and at least one of the paths
           points outside the working tree, or when running the command
           outside a working tree controlled by Git.
       git diff [--options] --cached [<commit>] [--] [<path>...]
           This form is to view the changes you staged for the next commit
           relative to the named <commit>. Typically you would want
           comparison with the latest commit, so if you do not give
           <commit>, it defaults to HEAD. If HEAD does not exist (e.g.
           unborn branches) and <commit> is not given, it shows all staged
           changes. --staged is a synonym of --cached.
       git diff [--options] <commit> [--] [<path>...]
           This form is to view the changes you have in your working tree
           relative to the named <commit>. You can use HEAD to compare it
           with the latest commit, or a branch name to compare with the tip
           of a different branch.
       git diff [--options] <commit> <commit> [--] [<path>...]
           This is to view the changes between two arbitrary <commit>.
       git diff [--options] <commit>..<commit> [--] [<path>...]
           This is synonymous to the previous form. If <commit> on one side
           is omitted, it will have the same effect as using HEAD instead.
       git diff [--options] <commit>...<commit> [--] [<path>...]
           This form is to view the changes on the branch containing and up
           to the second <commit>, starting at a common ancestor of both
           <commit>. "git diff A...B" is equivalent to "git diff
           $(git-merge-base A B) B". You can omit any one of <commit>, which
           has the same effect as using HEAD instead.
       Just in case if you are doing something exotic, it should be noted
       that all of the <commit> in the above description, except in the last
       two forms that use ".." notations, can be any <tree>.
       For a more complete list of ways to spell <commit>, see "SPECIFYING
       REVISIONS" section in gitrevisions(7). However, "diff" is about
       comparing two endpoints, not ranges, and the range notations
       ("<commit>..<commit>" and "<commit>...<commit>") do not mean a range
       as defined in the "SPECIFYING RANGES" section in gitrevisions(7).
       git diff [options] <blob> <blob>
           This form is to view the differences between the raw contents of
           two blob objects.

OPTIONS         top

       -p, -u, --patch
           Generate patch (see section on generating patches). This is the
           default.
       -s, --no-patch
           Suppress diff output. Useful for commands like git show that show
           the patch by default, or to cancel the effect of --patch.
       -U<n>, --unified=<n>
           Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual
           three. Implies -p.
       --raw
           Generate the diff in raw format.
       --patch-with-raw
           Synonym for -p --raw.
       --indent-heuristic, --no-indent-heuristic
           These are to help debugging and tuning experimental heuristics
           (which are off by default) that shift diff hunk boundaries to
           make patches easier to read.
       --minimal
           Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
           produced.
       --patience
           Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
       --histogram
           Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.
       --diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}
           Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
           default, myers
               The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the
               default.
           minimal
               Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
               produced.
           patience
               Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
           histogram
               This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
               low-occurrence common elements".
           For instance, if you configured diff.algorithm variable to a
           non-default value and want to use the default one, then you have
           to use --diff-algorithm=default option.
       --stat[=<width>[,<name-width>[,<count>]]]
           Generate a diffstat. By default, as much space as necessary will
           be used for the filename part, and the rest for the graph part.
           Maximum width defaults to terminal width, or 80 columns if not
           connected to a terminal, and can be overridden by <width>. The
           width of the filename part can be limited by giving another width
           <name-width> after a comma. The width of the graph part can be
           limited by using --stat-graph-width=<width> (affects all commands
           generating a stat graph) or by setting
           diff.statGraphWidth=<width> (does not affect git format-patch).
           By giving a third parameter <count>, you can limit the output to
           the first <count> lines, followed by ...  if there are more.
           These parameters can also be set individually with
           --stat-width=<width>, --stat-name-width=<name-width> and
           --stat-count=<count>.
       --numstat
           Similar to --stat, but shows number of added and deleted lines in
           decimal notation and pathname without abbreviation, to make it
           more machine friendly. For binary files, outputs two - instead of
           saying 0 0.
       --shortstat
           Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
           number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
           lines.
       --dirstat[=<param1,param2,...>]
           Output the distribution of relative amount of changes for each
           sub-directory. The behavior of --dirstat can be customized by
           passing it a comma separated list of parameters. The defaults are
           controlled by the diff.dirstat configuration variable (see
           git-config(1)). The following parameters are available:
           changes
               Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have
               been removed from the source, or added to the destination.
               This ignores the amount of pure code movements within a file.
               In other words, rearranging lines in a file is not counted as
               much as other changes. This is the default behavior when no
               parameter is given.
           lines
               Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based
               diff analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts.
               (For binary files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary
               files have no natural concept of lines). This is a more
               expensive --dirstat behavior than the changes behavior, but
               it does count rearranged lines within a file as much as other
               changes. The resulting output is consistent with what you get
               from the other --*stat options.
           files
               Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files
               changed. Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat
               analysis. This is the computationally cheapest --dirstat
               behavior, since it does not have to look at the file contents
               at all.
           cumulative
               Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory
               as well. Note that when using cumulative, the sum of the
               percentages reported may exceed 100%. The default
               (non-cumulative) behavior can be specified with the
               noncumulative parameter.
           <limit>
               An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by
               default). Directories contributing less than this percentage
               of the changes are not shown in the output.
           Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring
           directories with less than 10% of the total amount of changed
           files, and accumulating child directory counts in the parent
           directories: --dirstat=files,10,cumulative.
       --summary
           Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
           creations, renames and mode changes.
       --patch-with-stat
           Synonym for -p --stat.
       -z
           When --raw, --numstat, --name-only or --name-status has been
           given, do not munge pathnames and use NULs as output field
           terminators.
           Without this option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are
           quoted as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath
           (see git-config(1)).
       --name-only
           Show only names of changed files.
       --name-status
           Show only names and status of changed files. See the description
           of the --diff-filter option on what the status letters mean.
       --submodule[=<format>]
           Specify how differences in submodules are shown. When specifying
           --submodule=short the short format is used. This format just
           shows the names of the commits at the beginning and end of the
           range. When --submodule or --submodule=log is specified, the log
           format is used. This format lists the commits in the range like
           git-submodule(1)summary does. When --submodule=diff is specified,
           the diff format is used. This format shows an inline diff of the
           changes in the submodule contents between the commit range.
           Defaults to diff.submodule or the short format if the config
           option is unset.
       --color[=<when>]
           Show colored diff.  --color (i.e. without =<when>) is the same as
           --color=always.  <when> can be one of always, never, or auto. It
           can be changed by the color.ui and color.diff configuration
           settings.
       --no-color
           Turn off colored diff. This can be used to override configuration
           settings. It is the same as --color=never.
       --word-diff[=<mode>]
           Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words. By
           default, words are delimited by whitespace; see --word-diff-regex
           below. The <mode> defaults to plain, and must be one of:
           color
               Highlight changed words using only colors. Implies --color.
           plain
               Show words as [-removed-] and {+added+}. Makes no attempts to
               escape the delimiters if they appear in the input, so the
               output may be ambiguous.
           porcelain
               Use a special line-based format intended for script
               consumption. Added/removed/unchanged runs are printed in the
               usual unified diff format, starting with a +/-/` ` character
               at the beginning of the line and extending to the end of the
               line. Newlines in the input are represented by a tilde ~ on a
               line of its own.
           none
               Disable word diff again.
           Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to
           highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
       --word-diff-regex=<regex>
           Use <regex> to decide what a word is, instead of considering runs
           of non-whitespace to be a word. Also implies --word-diff unless
           it was already enabled.
           Every non-overlapping match of the <regex> is considered a word.
           Anything between these matches is considered whitespace and
           ignored(!) for the purposes of finding differences. You may want
           to append |[^[:space:]] to your regular expression to make sure
           that it matches all non-whitespace characters. A match that
           contains a newline is silently truncated(!) at the newline.
           For example, --word-diff-regex=.  will treat each character as a
           word and, correspondingly, show differences character by
           character.
           The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration
           option, see gitattributes(5) or git-config(1). Giving it
           explicitly overrides any diff driver or configuration setting.
           Diff drivers override configuration settings.
       --color-words[=<regex>]
           Equivalent to --word-diff=color plus (if a regex was specified)
           --word-diff-regex=<regex>.
       --no-renames
           Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives
           the default to do so.
       --check
           Warn if changes introduce conflict markers or whitespace errors.
           What are considered whitespace errors is controlled by
           core.whitespace configuration. By default, trailing whitespaces
           (including lines that solely consist of whitespaces) and a space
           character that is immediately followed by a tab character inside
           the initial indent of the line are considered whitespace errors.
           Exits with non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible
           with --exit-code.
       --ws-error-highlight=<kind>
           Highlight whitespace errors on lines specified by <kind> in the
           color specified by color.diff.whitespace. <kind> is a comma
           separated list of old, new, context. When this option is not
           given, only whitespace errors in new lines are highlighted. E.g.
           --ws-error-highlight=new,old highlights whitespace errors on both
           deleted and added lines.  all can be used as a short-hand for
           old,new,context. The diff.wsErrorHighlight configuration variable
           can be used to specify the default behaviour.
       --full-index
           Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full pre-
           and post-image blob object names on the "index" line when
           generating patch format output.
       --binary
           In addition to --full-index, output a binary diff that can be
           applied with git-apply.
       --abbrev[=<n>]
           Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in
           diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show only a
           partial prefix. This is independent of the --full-index option
           above, which controls the diff-patch output format. Non default
           number of digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
       -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
           Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
           This serves two purposes:
           It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a
           file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together
           with a very few lines that happen to match textually as the
           context, but as a single deletion of everything old followed by a
           single insertion of everything new, and the number m controls
           this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 60%).  -B/70% specifies
           that less than 30% of the original should remain in the result
           for Git to consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the
           resulting patch will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed
           together with context lines).
           When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as
           the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that
           disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number n controls
           this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%).  -B20% specifies
           that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more
           of the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible
           source of a rename to another file.
       -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
           Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a threshold on the
           similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to
           the file’s size). For example, -M90% means Git should consider a
           delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file
           hasn’t changed. Without a % sign, the number is to be read as a
           fraction, with a decimal point before it. I.e., -M5 becomes 0.5,
           and is thus the same as -M50%. Similarly, -M05 is the same as
           -M5%. To limit detection to exact renames, use -M100%. The
           default similarity index is 50%.
       -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
           Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder.
           If n is specified, it has the same meaning as for -M<n>.
       --find-copies-harder
           For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only
           if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
           changeset. This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files
           as candidates for the source of copy. This is a very expensive
           operation for large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more
           than one -C option has the same effect.
       -D, --irreversible-delete
           Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
           the diff between the preimage and /dev/null. The resulting patch
           is not meant to be applied with patch or git apply; this is
           solely for people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the
           text after the change. In addition, the output obviously lack
           enough information to apply such a patch in reverse, even
           manually, hence the name of the option.
           When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the
           deletion part of a delete/create pair.
       -l<num>
           The -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n is
           the number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents
           rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy
           targets exceeds the specified number.
       --diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]
           Select only files that are Added (A), Copied (C), Deleted (D),
           Modified (M), Renamed (R), have their type (i.e. regular file,
           symlink, submodule, ...) changed (T), are Unmerged (U), are
           Unknown (X), or have had their pairing Broken (B). Any
           combination of the filter characters (including none) can be
           used. When * (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all paths
           are selected if there is any file that matches other criteria in
           the comparison; if there is no file that matches other criteria,
           nothing is selected.
           Also, these upper-case letters can be downcased to exclude. E.g.
           --diff-filter=ad excludes added and deleted paths.
       -S<string>
           Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the
           specified string (i.e. addition/deletion) in a file. Intended for
           the scripter’s use.
           It is useful when you’re looking for an exact block of code (like
           a struct), and want to know the history of that block since it
           first came into being: use the feature iteratively to feed the
           interesting block in the preimage back into -S, and keep going
           until you get the very first version of the block.
       -G<regex>
           Look for differences whose patch text contains added/removed
           lines that match <regex>.
           To illustrate the difference between -S<regex> --pickaxe-regex
           and -G<regex>, consider a commit with the following diff in the
           same file:
               +    return !regexec(regexp, two->ptr, 1, &regmatch, 0);
               ...
               -    hit = !regexec(regexp, mf2.ptr, 1, &regmatch, 0);
           While git log -G"regexec\(regexp" will show this commit, git log
           -S"regexec\(regexp" --pickaxe-regex will not (because the number
           of occurrences of that string did not change).
           See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more information.
       --pickaxe-all
           When -S or -G finds a change, show all the changes in that
           changeset, not just the files that contain the change in
           <string>.
       --pickaxe-regex
           Treat the <string> given to -S as an extended POSIX regular
           expression to match.
       -O<orderfile>
           Control the order in which files appear in the output. This
           overrides the diff.orderFile configuration variable (see
           git-config(1)). To cancel diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.
           The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in
           <orderfile>. All files with pathnames that match the first
           pattern are output first, all files with pathnames that match the
           second pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on.
           All files with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output
           last, as if there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of
           the file. If multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match
           the same pattern but no earlier patterns), their output order
           relative to each other is the normal order.
           <orderfile> is parsed as follows:
           ·   Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators
               for readability.
           ·   Lines starting with a hash ("#") are ignored, so they can be
               used for comments. Add a backslash ("\") to the beginning of
               the pattern if it starts with a hash.
           ·   Each other line contains a single pattern.
           Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
           fnmantch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also
           matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
           components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern
           "foo*bar" matches "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not
           "foobarx".
       -R
           Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk
           file to tree contents.
       --relative[=<path>]
           When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be told to
           exclude changes outside the directory and show pathnames relative
           to it with this option. When you are not in a subdirectory (e.g.
           in a bare repository), you can name which subdirectory to make
           the output relative to by giving a <path> as an argument.
       -a, --text
           Treat all files as text.
       --ignore-space-at-eol
           Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
       -b, --ignore-space-change
           Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace
           at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
           whitespace characters to be equivalent.
       -w, --ignore-all-space
           Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
           even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
       --ignore-blank-lines
           Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
       --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
           Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number
           of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other.
           Defaults to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is
           unset.
       -W, --function-context
           Show whole surrounding functions of changes.
       --exit-code
           Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1). That is, it
           exits with 1 if there were differences and 0 means no
           differences.
       --quiet
           Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
       --ext-diff
           Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
           external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to use this
           option with git-log(1) and friends.
       --no-ext-diff
           Disallow external diff drivers.
       --textconv, --no-textconv
           Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run
           when comparing binary files. See gitattributes(5) for details.
           Because textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the
           resulting diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be
           applied. For this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default
           only for git-diff(1) and git-log(1), but not for
           git-format-patch(1) or diff plumbing commands.
       --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
           Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can
           be either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the
           default. Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when
           it either contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD
           differs from the commit recorded in the superproject and can be
           used to override any settings of the ignore option in
           git-config(1) or gitmodules(5). When "untracked" is used
           submodules are not considered dirty when they only contain
           untracked content (but they are still scanned for modified
           content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work tree of
           submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the
           superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using
           "all" hides all changes to submodules.
       --src-prefix=<prefix>
           Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
       --dst-prefix=<prefix>
           Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
       --no-prefix
           Do not show any source or destination prefix.
       --line-prefix=<prefix>
           Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.
       --ita-invisible-in-index
           By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing
           empty file in "git diff" and a new file in "git diff --cached".
           This option makes the entry appear as a new file in "git diff"
           and non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be
           reverted with --ita-visible-in-index. Both options are
           experimental and could be removed in future.
       For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
       gitdiffcore(7).
       -1 --base, -2 --ours, -3 --theirs
           Compare the working tree with the "base" version (stage #1), "our
           branch" (stage #2) or "their branch" (stage #3). The index
           contains these stages only for unmerged entries i.e. while
           resolving conflicts. See git-read-tree(1) section "3-Way Merge"
           for detailed information.
       -0
           Omit diff output for unmerged entries and just show "Unmerged".
           Can be used only when comparing the working tree with the index.
       <path>...
           The <paths> parameters, when given, are used to limit the diff to
           the named paths (you can give directory names and get diff for
           all files under them).

RAW OUTPUT FORMAT         top

       The raw output format from "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree",
       "git-diff-files" and "git diff --raw" are very similar.
       These commands all compare two sets of things; what is compared
       differs:
       git-diff-index <tree-ish>
           compares the <tree-ish> and the files on the filesystem.
       git-diff-index --cached <tree-ish>
           compares the <tree-ish> and the index.
       git-diff-tree [-r] <tree-ish-1> <tree-ish-2> [<pattern>...]
           compares the trees named by the two arguments.
       git-diff-files [<pattern>...]
           compares the index and the files on the filesystem.
       The "git-diff-tree" command begins its output by printing the hash of
       what is being compared. After that, all the commands print one output
       line per changed file.
       An output line is formatted this way:
           in-place edit  :100644 100644 bcd1234... 0123456... M file0
           copy-edit      :100644 100644 abcd123... 1234567... C68 file1 file2
           rename-edit    :100644 100644 abcd123... 1234567... R86 file1 file3
           create         :000000 100644 0000000... 1234567... A file4
           delete         :100644 000000 1234567... 0000000... D file5
           unmerged       :000000 000000 0000000... 0000000... U file6
       That is, from the left to the right:
        1. a colon.
        2. mode for "src"; 000000 if creation or unmerged.
        3. a space.
        4. mode for "dst"; 000000 if deletion or unmerged.
        5. a space.
        6. sha1 for "src"; 0{40} if creation or unmerged.
        7. a space.
        8. sha1 for "dst"; 0{40} if creation, unmerged or "look at work
           tree".
        9. a space.
       10. status, followed by optional "score" number.
       11. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used.
       12. path for "src"
       13. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used; only exists for C or R.
       14. path for "dst"; only exists for C or R.
       15. an LF or a NUL when -z option is used, to terminate the record.
       Possible status letters are:
       ·   A: addition of a file
       ·   C: copy of a file into a new one
       ·   D: deletion of a file
       ·   M: modification of the contents or mode of a file
       ·   R: renaming of a file
       ·   T: change in the type of the file
       ·   U: file is unmerged (you must complete the merge before it can be
           committed)
       ·   X: "unknown" change type (most probably a bug, please report it)
       Status letters C and R are always followed by a score (denoting the
       percentage of similarity between the source and target of the move or
       copy). Status letter M may be followed by a score (denoting the
       percentage of dissimilarity) for file rewrites.
       <sha1> is shown as all 0’s if a file is new on the filesystem and it
       is out of sync with the index.
       Example:
           :100644 100644 5be4a4...... 000000...... M file.c
       Without the -z option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted
       as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see
       git-config(1)). Using -z the filename is output verbatim and the line
       is terminated by a NUL byte.

DIFF FORMAT FOR MERGES         top

       "git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff --raw" can take -c or
       --cc option to generate diff output also for merge commits. The
       output differs from the format described above in the following way:
        1. there is a colon for each parent
        2. there are more "src" modes and "src" sha1
        3. status is concatenated status characters for each parent
        4. no optional "score" number
        5. single path, only for "dst"
       Example:
           ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8... cc95eb0... 4866510... MM      describe.c
       Note that combined diff lists only files which were modified from all
       parents.

GENERATING PATCHES WITH -P         top

       When "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree", or "git-diff-files" are run
       with a -p option, "git diff" without the --raw option, or "git log"
       with the "-p" option, they do not produce the output described above;
       instead they produce a patch file. You can customize the creation of
       such patches via the GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS
       environment variables.
       What the -p option produces is slightly different from the
       traditional diff format:
        1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header that looks like this:
               diff --git a/file1 b/file2
           The a/ and b/ filenames are the same unless rename/copy is
           involved. Especially, even for a creation or a deletion,
           /dev/null is not used in place of the a/ or b/ filenames.
           When rename/copy is involved, file1 and file2 show the name of
           the source file of the rename/copy and the name of the file that
           rename/copy produces, respectively.
        2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines:
               old mode <mode>
               new mode <mode>
               deleted file mode <mode>
               new file mode <mode>
               copy from <path>
               copy to <path>
               rename from <path>
               rename to <path>
               similarity index <number>
               dissimilarity index <number>
               index <hash>..<hash> <mode>
           File modes are printed as 6-digit octal numbers including the
           file type and file permission bits.
           Path names in extended headers do not include the a/ and b/
           prefixes.
           The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines, and
           the dissimilarity index is the percentage of changed lines. It is
           a rounded down integer, followed by a percent sign. The
           similarity index value of 100% is thus reserved for two equal
           files, while 100% dissimilarity means that no line from the old
           file made it into the new one.
           The index line includes the SHA-1 checksum before and after the
           change. The <mode> is included if the file mode does not change;
           otherwise, separate lines indicate the old and the new mode.
        3. Pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for
           the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).
        4. All the file1 files in the output refer to files before the
           commit, and all the file2 files refer to files after the commit.
           It is incorrect to apply each change to each file sequentially.
           For example, this patch will swap a and b:
               diff --git a/a b/b
               rename from a
               rename to b
               diff --git a/b b/a
               rename from b
               rename to a

COMBINED DIFF FORMAT         top

       Any diff-generating command can take the -c or --cc option to produce
       a combined diff when showing a merge. This is the default format when
       showing merges with git-diff(1) or git-show(1). Note also that you
       can give the -m option to any of these commands to force generation
       of diffs with individual parents of a merge.
       A combined diff format looks like this:
           diff --combined describe.c
           index fabadb8,cc95eb0..4866510
           --- a/describe.c
           +++ b/describe.c
           @@@ -98,20 -98,12 +98,20 @@@
                   return (a_date > b_date) ? -1 : (a_date == b_date) ? 0 : 1;
             }
           - static void describe(char *arg)
            -static void describe(struct commit *cmit, int last_one)
           ++static void describe(char *arg, int last_one)
             {
            +      unsigned char sha1[20];
            +      struct commit *cmit;
                   struct commit_list *list;
                   static int initialized = 0;
                   struct commit_name *n;
            +      if (get_sha1(arg, sha1) < 0)
            +              usage(describe_usage);
            +      cmit = lookup_commit_reference(sha1);
            +      if (!cmit)
            +              usage(describe_usage);
            +
                   if (!initialized) {
                           initialized = 1;
                           for_each_ref(get_name);
        1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header, that looks like this
           (when -c option is used):
               diff --combined file
           or like this (when --cc option is used):
               diff --cc file
        2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines (this example
           shows a merge with two parents):
               index <hash>,<hash>..<hash>
               mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode>
               new file mode <mode>
               deleted file mode <mode>,<mode>
           The mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode> line appears only if at least one
           of the <mode> is different from the rest. Extended headers with
           information about detected contents movement (renames and copying
           detection) are designed to work with diff of two <tree-ish> and
           are not used by combined diff format.
        3. It is followed by two-line from-file/to-file header
               --- a/file
               +++ b/file
           Similar to two-line header for traditional unified diff format,
           /dev/null is used to signal created or deleted files.
        4. Chunk header format is modified to prevent people from
           accidentally feeding it to patch -p1. Combined diff format was
           created for review of merge commit changes, and was not meant for
           apply. The change is similar to the change in the extended index
           header:
               @@@ <from-file-range> <from-file-range> <to-file-range> @@@
           There are (number of parents + 1) @ characters in the chunk
           header for combined diff format.
       Unlike the traditional unified diff format, which shows two files A
       and B with a single column that has - (minus — appears in A but
       removed in B), + (plus — missing in A but added to B), or " " (space
       — unchanged) prefix, this format compares two or more files file1,
       file2,... with one file X, and shows how X differs from each of
       fileN. One column for each of fileN is prepended to the output line
       to note how X’s line is different from it.
       A - character in the column N means that the line appears in fileN
       but it does not appear in the result. A + character in the column N
       means that the line appears in the result, and fileN does not have
       that line (in other words, the line was added, from the point of view
       of that parent).
       In the above example output, the function signature was changed from
       both files (hence two - removals from both file1 and file2, plus ++
       to mean one line that was added does not appear in either file1 or
       file2). Also eight other lines are the same from file1 but do not
       appear in file2 (hence prefixed with +).
       When shown by git diff-tree -c, it compares the parents of a merge
       commit with the merge result (i.e. file1..fileN are the parents).
       When shown by git diff-files -c, it compares the two unresolved merge
       parents with the working tree file (i.e. file1 is stage 2 aka "our
       version", file2 is stage 3 aka "their version").

OTHER DIFF FORMATS         top

       The --summary option describes newly added, deleted, renamed and
       copied files. The --stat option adds diffstat(1) graph to the output.
       These options can be combined with other options, such as -p, and are
       meant for human consumption.
       When showing a change that involves a rename or a copy, --stat output
       formats the pathnames compactly by combining common prefix and suffix
       of the pathnames. For example, a change that moves arch/i386/Makefile
       to arch/x86/Makefile while modifying 4 lines will be shown like this:
           arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile    |   4 +--
       The --numstat option gives the diffstat(1) information but is
       designed for easier machine consumption. An entry in --numstat output
       looks like this:
           1       2       README
           3       1       arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile
       That is, from left to right:
        1. the number of added lines;
        2. a tab;
        3. the number of deleted lines;
        4. a tab;
        5. pathname (possibly with rename/copy information);
        6. a newline.
       When -z output option is in effect, the output is formatted this way:
           1       2       README NUL
           3       1       NUL arch/i386/Makefile NUL arch/x86/Makefile NUL
       That is:
        1. the number of added lines;
        2. a tab;
        3. the number of deleted lines;
        4. a tab;
        5. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
        6. pathname in preimage;
        7. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);
        8. pathname in postimage (only exists if renamed/copied);
        9. a NUL.
       The extra NUL before the preimage path in renamed case is to allow
       scripts that read the output to tell if the current record being read
       is a single-path record or a rename/copy record without reading
       ahead. After reading added and deleted lines, reading up to NUL would
       yield the pathname, but if that is NUL, the record will show two
       paths.

EXAMPLES         top

       Various ways to check your working tree
               $ git diff            (1)
               $ git diff --cached   (2)
               $ git diff HEAD       (3)
           1. Changes in the working tree not yet staged for the next
           commit.
           2. Changes between the index and your last commit; what you would
           be committing if you run "git commit" without "-a" option.
           3. Changes in the working tree since your last commit; what you
           would be committing if you run "git commit -a"
       Comparing with arbitrary commits
               $ git diff test            (1)
               $ git diff HEAD -- ./test  (2)
               $ git diff HEAD^ HEAD      (3)
           1. Instead of using the tip of the current branch, compare with
           the tip of "test" branch.
           2. Instead of comparing with the tip of "test" branch, compare
           with the tip of the current branch, but limit the comparison to
           the file "test".
           3. Compare the version before the last commit and the last
           commit.
       Comparing branches
               $ git diff topic master    (1)
               $ git diff topic..master   (2)
               $ git diff topic...master  (3)
           1. Changes between the tips of the topic and the master branches.
           2. Same as above.
           3. Changes that occurred on the master branch since when the
           topic branch was started off it.
       Limiting the diff output
               $ git diff --diff-filter=MRC            (1)
               $ git diff --name-status                (2)
               $ git diff arch/i386 include/asm-i386   (3)
           1. Show only modification, rename, and copy, but not addition or
           deletion.
           2. Show only names and the nature of change, but not actual diff
           output.
           3. Limit diff output to named subtrees.
       Munging the diff output
               $ git diff --find-copies-harder -B -C  (1)
               $ git diff -R                          (2)
           1. Spend extra cycles to find renames, copies and complete
           rewrites (very expensive).
           2. Output diff in reverse.

SEE ALSO         top

       diff(1), git-difftool(1), git-log(1), gitdiffcore(7),
       git-format-patch(1), git-apply(1)

GIT         top

       Part of the git(1) suite

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control system)
       project.  Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this manual page,
       see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩.  This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git repository ⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on
       2017-07-05.  If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML ver‐
       sion of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date
       source for the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the
       information in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original man‐
       ual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
Git 2.13.0.rc0.45.ge             04/24/2017                      GIT-DIFF(1)

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