English ▾ Topics ▾ Version 2.43.1 ▾ git-diff last updated in 2.52.0

NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

git diff [<options>] [<commit>] [--] [<path>…​]
git diff [<options>] --cached [--merge-base] [<commit>] [--] [<path>…​]
git diff [<options>] [--merge-base] <commit> [<commit>…​] <commit> [--] [<path>…​]
git diff [<options>] <commit>…​<commit> [--] [<path>…​]
git diff [<options>] <blob> <blob>
git diff [<options>] --no-index [--] <path> <path>

DESCRIPTION

Show changes between the working tree and the index or a tree, changes between the index and a tree, changes between two trees, changes resulting from a merge, 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 [<options>] --no-index [--] <path> <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. This form implies --exit-code.

git diff [<options>] --cached [--merge-base] [<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.

If --merge-base is given, instead of using <commit>, use the merge base of <commit> and HEAD. git diff --cached --merge-base A is equivalent to git diff --cached $(git merge-base A HEAD).

git diff [<options>] [--merge-base] <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.

If --merge-base is given, instead of using <commit>, use the merge base of <commit> and HEAD. git diff --merge-base A is equivalent to git diff $(git merge-base A HEAD).

git diff [<options>] [--merge-base] <commit> <commit> [--] [<path>…​]

This is to view the changes between two arbitrary <commit>.

If --merge-base is given, use the merge base of the two commits for the "before" side. git diff --merge-base A B is equivalent to git diff $(git merge-base A B) B.

git diff [<options>] <commit> <commit>…​ <commit> [--] [<path>…​]

This form is to view the results of a merge commit. The first listed <commit> must be the merge itself; the remaining two or more commits should be its parents. Convenient ways to produce the desired set of revisions are to use the suffixes ^@ and ^!. If A is a merge commit, then git diff A A^@, git diff A^! and git show A all give the same combined diff.

git diff [<options>] <commit>..<commit> [--] [<path>…​]

This is synonymous to the earlier form (without the ..) for viewing the changes between two arbitrary <commit>. 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 you are doing something exotic, it should be noted that all of the <commit> in the above description, except in the --merge-base case and in the last two forms that use .. notations, can be any <tree>. A tree of interest is the one pointed to by the ref named AUTO_MERGE, which is written by the ort merge strategy upon hitting merge conflicts (see git-merge[1]). Comparing the working tree with AUTO_MERGE shows changes you’ve made so far to resolve textual conflicts (see the examples below).

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

-p
-u
--patch

Generate patch (see Generating patch text with -p). This is the default.

-s
--no-patch

Suppress all output from the diff machinery. Useful for commands like git show that show the patch by default to squelch their output, or to cancel the effect of options like --patch, --stat earlier on the command line in an alias.

-U<n>
--unified=<n>

Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual three. Implies --patch.

--output=<file>

Output to a specific file instead of stdout.

--output-indicator-new=<char>
--output-indicator-old=<char>
--output-indicator-context=<char>

Specify the character used to indicate new, old or context lines in the generated patch. Normally they are +, - and ' ' respectively.

--raw

Generate the diff in raw format.

--patch-with-raw

Synonym for -p --raw.

--indent-heuristic

Enable the heuristic that shifts diff hunk boundaries to make patches easier to read. This is the default.

--no-indent-heuristic

Disable the indent heuristic.

--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.

--anchored=<text>

Generate a diff using the "anchored diff" algorithm.

This option may be specified more than once.

If a line exists in both the source and destination, exists only once, and starts with this text, this algorithm attempts to prevent it from appearing as a deletion or addition in the output. It uses the "patience diff" algorithm internally.

--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 the 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 or by setting diff.statNameWidth=<width>. The width of the graph part can be limited by using --stat-graph-width=<width> or by setting diff.statGraphWidth=<width>. Using --stat or --stat-graph-width affects all commands generating a stat graph, while setting diff.statNameWidth or diff.statGraphWidth 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>.

--compact-summary

Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as file creations or deletions ("new" or "gone", optionally "+l" if it’s a symlink) and mode changes ("+x" or "-x" for adding or removing executable bit respectively) in diffstat. The information is put between the filename part and the graph part. Implies --stat.

--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.

-X[<param1,param2,…​>]
--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.

--cumulative

Synonym for --dirstat=cumulative

--dirstat-by-file[=<param1,param2>…​]

Synonym for --dirstat=files,param1,param2…​

--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. The file names are often encoded in UTF-8. For more information see the discussion about encoding in the git-log[1] manual page.

--name-status

Show only names and status of changed files. See the description of the --diff-filter option on what the status letters mean. Just like --name-only the file names are often encoded in UTF-8.

--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.

--color-moved[=<mode>]

Moved lines of code are colored differently. It can be changed by the diff.colorMoved configuration setting. The <mode> defaults to no if the option is not given and to zebra if the option with no mode is given. The mode must be one of:

no

Moved lines are not highlighted.

default

Is a synonym for zebra. This may change to a more sensible mode in the future.

plain

Any line that is added in one location and was removed in another location will be colored with color.diff.newMoved. Similarly color.diff.oldMoved will be used for removed lines that are added somewhere else in the diff. This mode picks up any moved line, but it is not very useful in a review to determine if a block of code was moved without permutation.

blocks

Blocks of moved text of at least 20 alphanumeric characters are detected greedily. The detected blocks are painted using either the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color. Adjacent blocks cannot be told apart.

zebra

Blocks of moved text are detected as in blocks mode. The blocks are painted using either the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color or color.diff.{old,new}MovedAlternative. The change between the two colors indicates that a new block was detected.

dimmed-zebra

Similar to zebra, but additional dimming of uninteresting parts of moved code is performed. The bordering lines of two adjacent blocks are considered interesting, the rest is uninteresting. dimmed_zebra is a deprecated synonym.

--no-color-moved

Turn off move detection. This can be used to override configuration settings. It is the same as --color-moved=no.

--color-moved-ws=<modes>

This configures how whitespace is ignored when performing the move detection for --color-moved. It can be set by the diff.colorMovedWS configuration setting. These modes can be given as a comma separated list:

no

Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection.

ignore-space-at-eol

Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.

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.

ignore-all-space

Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.

allow-indentation-change

Initially ignore any whitespace in the move detection, then group the moved code blocks only into a block if the change in whitespace is the same per line. This is incompatible with the other modes.

--no-color-moved-ws

Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection. This can be used to override configuration settings. It is the same as --color-moved-ws=no.

--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.

--[no-]rename-empty

Whether to use empty blobs as rename source.

--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 consist solely 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 in the context, old or new lines of the diff. Multiple values are separated by comma, none resets previous values, default reset the list to new and all is a shorthand for old,new,context. When this option is not given, and the configuration variable diff.wsErrorHighlight is not set, only whitespace errors in new lines are highlighted. The whitespace errors are colored with color.diff.whitespace.

--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. Implies --patch.

--abbrev[=<n>]

Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show the shortest prefix that is at least <n> hexdigits long that uniquely refers the object. In diff-patch output format, --full-index takes higher precedence, i.e. if --full-index is specified, full blob names will be shown regardless of --abbrev. Non default number of digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.

-B[<n>][/<m>]