Back to main site | Back to man page index

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



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

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


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

           If exactly two paths are given and at least one points outside the current repository, git diff will
           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. If
           HEAD does not exist (e.g. unborned 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] <blob> <blob>
           This form is to view the differences between the raw contents of two blob objects.

       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).


       --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
           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, each pathname output will have TAB, LF, double quotes, and backslash characters
           replaced with \t, \n, \", and \\, respectively, and the pathname will be enclosed in double quotes if any
           of those replacements occurred.

       --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 --submodule or --submodule=log is given, the log
           format is used. This format lists the commits in the range like git-submodule(1)summary does. Omitting the
           --submodule option or specifying --submodule=short, uses the short format. This format just shows the
           names of the commits at the beginning and end of the range. Can be tweaked via the diff.submodule
           configuration variable.

       --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.


               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.

           The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration option, see gitattributes(1) 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 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.

       --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
           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%.

       -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 nor 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.

       -S<string>
           Look for differences that introduce or remove an instance of <string>. Note that this is different than
           the string simply appearing in diff output; see the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more details.

       -G<regex>
           Look for differences whose added or removed line matches the given <regex>.

       --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
           Make the <string> not a plain string but an extended POSIX regex to match.

       -O<orderfile>
           Output the patch in the order specified in the <orderfile>, which has one shell glob pattern per line.

       -R

           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.

       --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.

       -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/".


       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"

       ·   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), and are the only ones to be so.

       <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


       When -z option is not used, TAB, LF, and backslash characters in pathnames are represented as \t, \n, and \\,
       respectively.

DIFF FORMAT FOR MERGES
       "git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff --raw" can take -c or --cc option to generate diff output also
       for merge commits. The output differs from the format described above in the following way:

        1. there is a colon for each parent

        2. there are more "src" modes and "src" sha1

        3. status is concatenated status characters for each parent

        4. no optional "score" number

        5. single path, only for "dst"

       Example:

           ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8... cc95eb0... 4866510... MM      describe.c


       Note that combined diff lists only files which were modified from all parents.

GENERATING PATCHES WITH -P
       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:


               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. TAB, LF, double quote and backslash characters in pathnames are represented as \t, \n, \" and \\,
           respectively. If there is need for such substitution then the whole pathname is put in double quotes.

        4. All the file1 files in the output refer to files before the commit, and all the file2 files refer to files
           after the commit. It is incorrect to apply each change to each file sequentially. For example, this patch
           will swap a and b:

               diff --git a/a b/b
               rename from a
               rename to b
               diff --git a/b b/a
               rename from b
               rename to a

COMBINED DIFF FORMAT
       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)

            +      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).


       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.

           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 nor deletion.
           2. Show only names and the nature of change, but not actual diff output.
           3. Limit diff output to named subtrees.

       Munging the diff output

               $ git diff --find-copies-harder -B -C  (1)
               $ git diff -R                          (2)

           1. Spend extra cycles to find renames, copies and complete rewrites (very expensive).
           2. Output diff in reverse.

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

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite