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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 [--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> [<pathspec>...]
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> [<pathspec>...]
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. If both paths point to directories, additional
pathspecs may be provided. These will limit the files included
in the difference. All such pathspecs must be relative as they
apply to both sides of the diff.
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.
-p, -u, --patch
Generate patch (see the section called “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 <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=<name-width>. The width of the graph part
can be limited by using --stat-graph-width=<graph-width> or by
setting diff.statGraphWidth=<graph-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 [<param>,...], --dirstat[=<param>,...]
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[=<param>,...]
Synonym for --dirstat=files,<param>,....
--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 the name of each changed file in the post-image
tree. 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 the name(s) and status of each changed file. 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=<mode>,...
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>]
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>], --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
lacks 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 involve some preliminary steps that can
detect subsets of renames/copies cheaply, followed by an
exhaustive fallback portion that compares all remaining
unpaired destinations to all relevant sources. (For renames,
only remaining unpaired sources are relevant; for copies, all
original sources are relevant.) For N sources and
destinations, this exhaustive check is O(N^2). This option
prevents the exhaustive portion of rename/copy detection from
running if the number of source/destination files involved
exceeds the specified number. Defaults to diff.renameLimit.
Note that a value of 0 is treated as unlimited.
--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.
Note that not all diffs can feature all types. For instance,
copied and renamed entries cannot appear if detection for
those types is disabled.
-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.
Binary files are searched as well.
-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 frotz(nitfol, two->ptr, 1, 0);
...
- hit = frotz(nitfol, mf2.ptr, 1, 0);
While git log -G"frotz\(nitfol" will show this commit, git log
-S"frotz\(nitfol" --pickaxe-regex will not (because the number
of occurrences of that string did not change).
Unless --text is supplied patches of binary files without a
textconv filter will be ignored.
See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more information.
--find-object=<object-id>
Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of
the specified object. Similar to -S, just the argument is
different in that it doesn’t search for a specific string but
for a specific object id.
The object can be a blob or a submodule commit. It implies the
-t option in git-log to also find trees.
--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 fnmatch(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".
--skip-to=<file>, --rotate-to=<file>
Discard the files before the named <file> from the output
(i.e. skip to), or move them to the end of the output (i.e.
rotate to). These options were invented primarily for the use
of the git difftool command, and may not be very useful
otherwise.
-R
Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
on-disk file to tree contents.
--relative[=<path>], --no-relative
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. --no-relative can be used to countermand both
diff.relative config option and previous --relative.
-a, --text
Treat all files as text.
--ignore-cr-at-eol
Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a
comparison.
--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.
-I<regex>, --ignore-matching-lines=<regex>
Ignore changes whose all lines match <regex>. This option may
be specified more than once.
--inter-hunk-context=<number>
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 function as context lines for each change. The
function names are determined in the same way as git diff
works out patch hunk headers (see "Defining a custom
hunk-header" in gitattributes(5)).
--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.
Disables execution of external diff helpers whose exit code is
not trusted, i.e. their respective configuration option
diff.trustExitCode or diff.<driver>.trustExitCode or
environment variable GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF_TRUST_EXIT_CODE is
false.
--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[=(none|untracked|dirty|all)]
Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. all 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.
--default-prefix
Use the default source and destination prefixes ("a/" and
"b/"). This overrides configuration variables such as
diff.noprefix, diff.srcPrefix, diff.dstPrefix, and
diff.mnemonicPrefix (see git-config(1)).
--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) when using -1 or --base,
• "our branch" (stage #2) when using -2 or --ours, or
• "their branch" (stage #3) when using -3 or --theirs.
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 <path> 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 deletion, unmerged or "work tree out
of sync with the index".
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 (regular file, symbolic link
or submodule)
• 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.
The sha1 for "dst" is shown as all 0’s if a file on the filesystem
is out of sync with the index.
Example:
:100644 100644 5be4a4a 0000000 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. tab-separated pathname(s) of the file
For -c and --cc, only the destination or final path is shown even
if the file was renamed on any side of history. With
--combined-all-paths, the name of the path in each parent is shown
followed by the name of the path in the merge commit.
Examples for -c and --cc without --combined-all-paths:
::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM desc.c
::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM bar.sh
::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR phooey.c
Examples when --combined-all-paths added to either -c or --cc:
::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM desc.c desc.c desc.c
::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM foo.sh bar.sh bar.sh
::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR fooey.c fuey.c phooey.c
Note that combined diff lists only files which were modified from
all parents.
Running git-diff(1), git-log(1), git-show(1), git-diff-index(1),
git-diff-tree(1), or git-diff-files(1) with the -p option produces
patch text. You can customize the creation of patch text via the
GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS environment variables (see
git(1)), and the diff attribute (see gitattributes(5)).
What the -p option produces is slightly different from the
traditional diff format:
1. It is preceded by 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 a 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 the 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 <mode> 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 blob object names 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
5. Hunk headers mention the name of the function to which the
hunk applies. See "Defining a custom hunk-header" in
gitattributes(5) for details of how to tailor this to specific
languages.
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 suitable --diff-merges option to any of
these commands to force generation of diffs in a specific format.
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 by a "git diff" header, that looks like this
(when the -c option is used):
diff --combined file
or like this (when the --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 content movement (renames and
copying detection) are designed to work with the diff of two
<tree-ish> and are not used by combined diff format.
3. It is followed by a two-line from-file/to-file header:
--- a/file
+++ b/file
Similar to the two-line header for the traditional unified
diff format, /dev/null is used to signal created or deleted
files.
However, if the --combined-all-paths option is provided,
instead of a two-line from-file/to-file, you get an N+1 line
from-file/to-file header, where N is the number of parents in
the merge commit:
--- a/file
--- a/file
--- a/file
+++ b/file
This extended format can be useful if rename or copy detection
is active, to allow you to see the original name of the file
in different parents.
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
to be applied. 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)
$ git diff AUTO_MERGE (4)
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
4. Changes in the working tree you’ve made to resolve
textual conflicts so far.
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.
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included
from the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as
what’s found there:
diff.autoRefreshIndex
When using git diff to compare with work tree files, do not
consider stat-only changes as changed. Instead, silently run
git update-index --refresh to update the cached stat
information for paths whose contents in the work tree match
the contents in the index. This option defaults to true. Note
that this affects only git diff Porcelain, and not lower level
diff commands such as git diff-files.
diff.dirstat
A comma separated list of --dirstat parameters specifying the
default behavior of the --dirstat option to git diff and
friends. The defaults can be overridden on the command line
(using --dirstat=<param>,...). The fallback defaults (when not
changed by diff.dirstat) are changes,noncumulative,3. 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: files,10,cumulative.
diff.statNameWidth
Limit the width of the filename part in --stat output. If set,
applies to all commands generating --stat output except
format-patch.
diff.statGraphWidth
Limit the width of the graph part in --stat output. If set,
applies to all commands generating --stat output except
format-patch.
diff.context
Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the
default of 3. This value is overridden by the -U option.
diff.interHunkContext
Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified
number of lines, thereby fusing the hunks that are close to
each other. This value serves as the default for the
--inter-hunk-context command line option.
diff.external
If this config variable is set, diff generation is not
performed using the internal diff machinery, but using the
given command. Can be overridden with the GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF
environment variable. The command is called with parameters as
described under "git Diffs" in git(1). Note: if you want to
use an external diff program only on a subset of your files,
you might want to use gitattributes(5) instead.
diff.trustExitCode
If this boolean value is set to true then the diff.external
command is expected to return exit code 0 if it considers the
input files to be equal or 1 if it considers them to be
different, like diff(1). If it is set to false, which is the
default, then the command is expected to return exit code 0
regardless of equality. Any other exit code causes Git to
report a fatal error.
diff.ignoreSubmodules
Sets the default value of --ignore-submodules. Note that this
affects only git diff Porcelain, and not lower level diff
commands such as git diff-files. git checkout and git switch
also honor this setting when reporting uncommitted changes.
Setting it to all disables the submodule summary normally
shown by git commit and git status when
status.submoduleSummary is set unless it is overridden by
using the --ignore-submodules command-line option. The git
submodule commands are not affected by this setting. By
default this is set to untracked so that any untracked
submodules are ignored.
diff.mnemonicPrefix
If set, git diff uses a prefix pair that is different from the
standard a/ and b/ depending on what is being compared. When
this configuration is in effect, reverse diff output also
swaps the order of the prefixes:
git diff
compares the (i)ndex and the (w)ork tree;
git diff HEAD
compares a (c)ommit and the (w)ork tree;
git diff --cached
compares a (c)ommit and the (i)ndex;
git diff HEAD:<file1> <file2>
compares an (o)bject and a (w)ork tree entity;
git diff --no-index <a> <b>
compares two non-git things <a> and <b>.
diff.noPrefix
If set, git diff does not show any source or destination
prefix.
diff.srcPrefix
If set, git diff uses this source prefix. Defaults to a/.
diff.dstPrefix
If set, git diff uses this destination prefix. Defaults to b/.
diff.relative
If set to true, git diff does not show changes outside of the
directory and show pathnames relative to the current
directory.
diff.orderFile
File indicating how to order files within a diff. See the -O
option for details. If diff.orderFile is a relative pathname,
it is treated as relative to the top of the working tree.
diff.renameLimit
The number of files to consider in the exhaustive portion of
copy/rename detection; equivalent to the git diff option -l.
If not set, the default value is currently 1000. This setting
has no effect if rename detection is turned off.
diff.renames
Whether and how Git detects renames. If set to false, rename
detection is disabled. If set to true, basic rename detection
is enabled. If set to copies or copy, Git will detect copies,
as well. Defaults to true. Note that this affects only git
diff Porcelain like git-diff(1) and git-log(1), and not lower
level commands such as git-diff-files(1).
diff.suppressBlankEmpty
A boolean to inhibit the standard behavior of printing a space
before each empty output line. Defaults to false.
diff.submodule
Specify the format in which differences in submodules are
shown. The short format just shows the names of the commits at
the beginning and end of the range. The log format lists the
commits in the range like git-submodule(1) summary does. The
diff format shows an inline diff of the changed contents of
the submodule. Defaults to short.
diff.wordRegex
A POSIX Extended Regular Expression used to determine what is
a "word" when performing word-by-word difference calculations.
Character sequences that match the regular expression are
"words", all other characters are ignorable whitespace.
diff.<driver>.command
The custom diff driver command. See gitattributes(5) for
details.
diff.<driver>.trustExitCode
If this boolean value is set to true then the
diff.<driver>.command command is expected to return exit code
0 if it considers the input files to be equal or 1 if it
considers them to be different, like diff(1). If it is set to
false, which is the default, then the command is expected to
return exit code 0 regardless of equality. Any other exit code
causes Git to report a fatal error.
diff.<driver>.xfuncname
The regular expression that the diff driver should use to
recognize the hunk header. A built-in pattern may also be
used. See gitattributes(5) for details.
diff.<driver>.binary
Set this option to true to make the diff driver treat files as
binary. See gitattributes(5) for details.
diff.<driver>.textconv
The command that the diff driver should call to generate the
text-converted version of a file. The result of the conversion
is used to generate a human-readable diff. See
gitattributes(5) for details.
diff.<driver>.wordRegex
The regular expression that the diff driver should use to
split words in a line. See gitattributes(5) for details.
diff.<driver>.cachetextconv
Set this option to true to make the diff driver cache the text
conversion outputs. See gitattributes(5) for details.
diff.indentHeuristic
Set this option to false to disable the default heuristics
that shift diff hunk boundaries to make patches easier to
read.
diff.algorithm
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".
diff.wsErrorHighlight
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. The whitespace errors are
colored with color.diff.whitespace. The command line option
--ws-error-highlight=<kind> overrides this setting.
diff.colorMoved
If set to either a valid <mode> or a true value, moved lines
in a diff are colored differently. For details of valid modes
see --color-moved. If simply set to true the default color
mode will be used. When set to false, moved lines are not
colored.
diff.colorMovedWS
When moved lines are colored using e.g. the diff.colorMoved
setting, this option controls the mode how spaces are treated.
For details of valid modes see --color-moved-ws in
git-diff(1).
diff(1), git-difftool(1), git-log(1), gitdiffcore(7),
git-format-patch(1), git-apply(1), git-show(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 2025-08-11. (At that time,
the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-07.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version 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 manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
Git 2.51.0.rc1 2025-08-07 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-diff-pairs(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-merge-file(1), git-p4(1), git-pull(1), git-range-diff(1), git-rebase(1), git-show(1), git-status(1), git-submodule(1), stg-diff(1), stg-export(1), stg-patches(1), stg-show(1), gitdiffcore(7), giteveryday(7), gitfaq(7), gitglossary(7)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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