# git-diff(1) Manual Page

## 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>…​] <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, 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>

  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`.

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. unborn 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>] <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. A convenient way to produce the desired set of revisions is to use the ^@ suffix. For instance, if `master` names a merge commit, `git diff master master^@` gives the same combined diff as `git show master`.

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 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).

git diff [<options>] <blob> <blob>

  This form is to view the differences between the raw contents of two blob objects.

## OPTIONS

-p
-u
--patch

  Generate patch (see section on generating patches). This is the default.

-s
--no-patch

  Suppress diff output. Useful for commands like `git show` that show the patch by default, or to cancel the effect of `--patch`.

-U<n>
--unified=<n>

  Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual three. Implies `--patch`. Implies `-p`.

--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 this 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. 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>`.

--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[<param1,param2,…​>]
--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`

    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[=<param1,param2>…​]

  Synonym for --dirstat=files,param1,param2…​

--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 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 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=<modes>

  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>]

  Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words. 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 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 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 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.

  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, diffs from the index to the working tree can never have Added entries (because the set of paths included in the diff is limited by what is in the index). Similarly, 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`".

-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.

--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. Defaults to `diff.interHunkContext` or 0 if the config option is unset.

-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/".

--no-prefix

  Do not show any source or destination prefix.

--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), "our branch" (stage #2) or "their branch" (stage #3). 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 <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).

## Raw output format

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 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"

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

- 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.

<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 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.

## 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. 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.

## Generating patch text with -p

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.

What the -p option produces is slightly different from the traditional diff format:

1. 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 the `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.

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 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

## 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)
     -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 with 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 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.

   However, if the --combined-all-paths option is provided, instead of a two-line from-file/to-file you get a 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").

## other diff formats

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.

## 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.

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.

## SEE ALSO

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

## GIT

Part of the git(1) suite