git-diff-files [-q] [-0|-1|-2|-3|-c|--cc] [<common diff options>] [<path>…]
Compares the files in the working tree and the index. When paths
are specified, compares only those named paths. Otherwise all
entries in the index are compared. The output format is the
same as "git-diff-index" and "git-diff-tree".
-
-p
-
Generate patch (see section on generating patches)
-
-u
-
Synonym for "-p".
-
--patch-with-raw
-
Generate patch but keep also the default raw diff output.
-
-z
-
\0 line termination on output
-
--name-only
-
Show only names of changed files.
-
--name-status
-
Show only names and status of changed files.
-
--full-index
-
Instead of the first handful characters, show full
object name of pre- and post-image blob on the "index"
line when generating a patch format output.
-
--abbrev[=<n>]
-
Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
lines, show only handful hexdigits prefix. This is
independent of --full-index option above, which controls
the diff-patch output format. Non default number of
digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
-
-B
-
Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
-
-M
-
Detect renames.
-
-C
-
Detect copies as well as renames.
-
--diff-filter=[ACDMRTUXB*]
-
Select only files that are Added (A), Copied (C),
Deleted (D), Modified (M), Renamed (R), have their
type (mode) changed (T), are Unmerged (U), are
Unknown (X), or have had their pairing Broken (B).
Any combination of the filter characters may 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.
-
--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.
-
-l<num>
-
-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.
-
-S<string>
-
Look for differences that contain the change in <string>.
-
--pickaxe-all
-
When -S 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
-
Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
on-disk file to tree contents.
For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
diffcore documentation.
-
-1 -2 -3 or --base --ours --theirs, and -0
-
Diff against the "base" version, "our branch" or "their
branch" respectively. With these options, diffs for
merged entries are not shown.
The default is to diff against our branch (-2) and the
cleanly resolved paths. The option -0 can be given to
omit diff output for unmerged entries and just show "Unmerged".
-
-c,--cc
-
This compares stage 2 (our branch), stage 3 (their
branch) and the working tree file and outputs a combined
diff, similar to the way diff-tree shows a merge
commit with these flags.
-
-q
-
Remain silent even on nonexisting files
The output format from "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree" and
"git-diff-files" 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.
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:
-
a colon.
-
mode for "src"; 000000 if creation or unmerged.
-
a space.
-
mode for "dst"; 000000 if deletion or unmerged.
-
a space.
-
sha1 for "src"; 0{40} if creation or unmerged.
-
a space.
-
sha1 for "dst"; 0{40} if creation, unmerged or "look at work tree".
-
a space.
-
status, followed by optional "score" number.
-
a tab or a NUL when -z option is used.
-
path for "src"
-
a tab or a NUL when -z option is used; only exists for C or R.
-
path for "dst"; only exists for C or R.
-
an LF or a NUL when -z option is used, to terminate the record.
<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.
When "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree", or "git-diff-files" are run
with a -p option, they do not produce the output described above;
instead they produce a patch file.
The patch generation can be customized at two levels.
-
When the environment variable GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF is not set,
these commands internally invoke "diff" like this:
diff -L a/<path> -L b/<path> -pu <old> <new>
For added files, /dev/null is used for <old>. For removed
files, /dev/null is used for <new>
The "diff" formatting options can be customized via the
environment variable GIT_DIFF_OPTS. For example, if you
prefer context diff:
GIT_DIFF_OPTS=-c git-diff-index -p HEAD
-
When the environment variable GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF is set, the
program named by it is called, instead of the diff invocation
described above.
For a path that is added, removed, or modified,
GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF is called with 7 parameters:
path old-file old-hex old-mode new-file new-hex new-mode
where:
<old|new>-file
|
are files GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF can use to read the
contents of <old|new>,
|
<old|new>-hex
|
are the 40-hexdigit SHA1 hashes,
|
<old|new>-mode
|
are the octal representation of the file modes.
|
The file parameters can point at the user's working file
(e.g. new-file in "git-diff-files"), /dev/null (e.g. old-file
when a new file is added), or a temporary file (e.g. old-file in the
index). GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF should not worry about unlinking the
temporary file --- it is removed when GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF exits.
For a path that is unmerged, GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF is called with 1
parameter, <path>.
What -p option produces is slightly different from the
traditional diff format.
-
It is preceded with a "git diff" header, that looks like
this:
diff --git a/file1 b/file2
The a/ and b/ filenames are the same unless rename/copy is
involved. Especially, even for a creation or a deletion,
/dev/null is _not_ used in place of a/ or b/ filenames.
When rename/copy is involved, file1 and file2 show the
name of the source file of the rename/copy and the name of
the file that rename/copy produces, respectively.
-
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>
-
TAB, LF, and backslash characters in pathnames are
represented as \t, \n, and \\, respectively.
git-diff-tree and git-diff-files can take -c or --cc option
to produce combined diff, which looks like this:
diff --combined describe.c
@@@ +98,7 @@@
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;
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 last file. A + character
in the column N means that the line appears in the last file,
and fileN does not have that line.
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 nor file2). Also two 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").
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.