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GIT-DIFF-FILES(1) Git Manual GIT-DIFF-FILES(1)
NAME
git-diff-files - Compares files in the working tree and the index
SYNOPSIS
git diff-files [-q] [-0|-1|-2|-3|-c|--cc] [<common diff options>] [<path>...]
DESCRIPTION
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 for git diff-index and git diff-tree.
OPTIONS
-p, -u, --patch
Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
-U<n>, --unified=<n>
Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual three. Implies -p.
--raw
Generate the raw format. This is the default.
--patch-with-raw
Synonym for -p --raw.
--patience
Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
--stat[=<width>[,<name-width>]]
Generate a diffstat. You can override the default output width for 80-column terminal by --stat=<width>. The width of
the filename part can be controlled by giving another width to it separated by a comma.
--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[=<limit>]
Output the distribution of relative amount of changes (number of lines added or removed) for each sub-directory.
Directories with changes below a cut-off percent (3% by default) are not shown. The cut-off percent can be set with
--dirstat=<limit>. Changes in a child directory are not counted for the parent directory, unless --cumulative is
used.
--dirstat-by-file[=<limit>]
Same as --dirstat, but counts changed files instead of lines.
--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>]
Chose the output format for submodule differences. <format> can be one of short and log. short just shows pairs of
commit names, this format is used when this option is not given. log is the default value for this option and lists
the commits in that commit range like the summary option of git-submodule(1) does.
--color[=<when>]
Show colored diff. The value must be always (the default), never, or auto.
--no-color
Turn off colored diff, even when the configuration file gives the default to color output. Same as --color=never.
--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.
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 trailing whitespace or an indent that uses a space before a tab. 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 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 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.
-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.
-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
Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk file to tree contents.
--relative[=<path>]
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.
-a, --text
Treat all files as text.
--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.
--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.
--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.
--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.
For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also gitdiffcore(7).
-1 --base, -2 --ours, -3 --theirs, -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 nonexistent files
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:
o A: addition of a file
o C: copy of a file into a new one
o D: deletion of a file
o M: modification of the contents or mode of a file
o R: renaming of a file
o T: change in the type of the file
o U: file is unmerged (you must complete the merge before it can be committed)
o 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:
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 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)
-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 -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).
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 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.
AUTHOR
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvaldsATosdl.org[1]>
DOCUMENTATION
Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <gitATvger.org[2]>.
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
NOTES
1. torvaldsATosdl.org
mailto:torvaldsATosdl.org
2. gitATvger.org
mailto:gitATvger.org
Git 1.7.4.4 04/11/2011 GIT-DIFF-FILES(1)
