git-diff-files [<pattern>...]::
compares the cache and the files on the filesystem.
-The following desription uses "old" and "new" to mean those
-compared entities.
-For files in old but not in new (i.e. removed):
+An output line is formatted this way:
- -<mode> \t <type> \t <object> \t <path>
+ ':' <mode> ' ' <mode> ' ' <sha1> ' ' <sha1> I <path> I <path> L
-For files not in old but in new (i.e. added):
+By default, I and L are '\t' and '\n' respectively. When '-z'
+flag is in effect, both I and L are '\0'.
- +<mode> \t <type> \t <object> \t <path>
+In each <mode>, <sha1> and <path> pair, left hand side describes
+the left hand side of what is being compared (<tree-ish> in
+git-diff-cache, <tree-ish-1> in git-diff-tree, cache contents in
+git-diff-files). Non-existence is shown by having 000000 in the
+<mode> column. That is, 000000 appears as the first <mode> for
+newly created files, and as the second <mode> for deleted files.
-For files that differ:
+Usually two <path> are the same. When rename/copy detection is
+used, however, an "create" and another "delete" records can be
+merged into a single record that has two <path>, old name and
+new name.
- *<old-mode>-><new-mode> \t <type> \t <old-sha1>-><new-sha1> \t <path>
+<sha1> is shown as all 0's if new is a file on the filesystem
+and it is out of sync with the cache. Example:
-<new-sha1> is shown as all 0's if new is a file on the
-filesystem and it is out of sync with the cache. Example:
-
- *100644->100644 blob 5be4a4.......->000000....... file.c
+ :100644 100644 5be4a4...... 000000...... file.c file.c
Generating patches with -p