|
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)
git-diff - Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc
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>
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.
-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, ®match, 0);
...
- hit = !regexec(regexp, mf2.ptr, 1, ®match, 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).
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.
"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.
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
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").
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.
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.
diff(1), git-difftool(1), git-log(1), gitdiffcore(7),
git-format-patch(1), git-apply(1)
Part of the git(1) suite
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)
Pages that refer to this page: git(1), git-config(1), git-diff(1), git-diff-files(1), git-diff-index(1), git-difftool(1), git-diff-tree(1), git-fast-export(1), git-format-patch(1), git-log(1), git-ls-files(1), git-merge(1), git-p4(1), git-pull(1), git-rebase(1), git-show(1), git-submodule(1), gitdiffcore(7), giteveryday(7), gitglossary(7)