aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Documentation/git-diff.txt
blob: 639b969315d4c9c6ece95cdeb10c2f92bd17adab (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
git-diff(1)
===========

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


SYNOPSIS
--------
'git-diff' [<common diff options>] <commit>{0,2} [--] [<path>...]

DESCRIPTION
-----------
Show changes between two trees, a tree and the working tree, a
tree and the index file, or the index file and the working tree.

'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 gitlink:git-add[1].

	If exactly two paths are given, and at least one is untracked,
	compare the two files / directories. This behavior can be
	forced by --no-index.

'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.

'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 form is to view the changes between two <commit>,
	for example, tips of two branches.

Just in case if you are doing something exotic, it should be
noted that all of the <commit> in the above description can be
any <tree-ish>.

For a more complete list of ways to spell <commit>, see
"SPECIFYING REVISIONS" section in gitlink:git-rev-parse[1].


OPTIONS
-------
include::diff-options.txt[]

<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).


EXAMPLES
--------

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.


Limiting the diff output::
+
------------
$ git diff --diff-filter=MRC            <1>
$ git diff --name-status -r             <2>
$ git diff arch/i386 include/asm-i386   <3>
------------
+
<1> show only modification, rename and copy, but not addition
nor deletion.
<2> show only names and the nature of change, but not actual
diff output.  --name-status disables usual patch generation
which in turn also disables recursive behavior, so without -r
you would only see the directory name if there is a change in a
file in a subdirectory.
<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.


Author
------
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

Documentation
--------------
Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.

GIT
---
Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite