git-diff(1) Manual Page

git-diff [ --diff-options ] <ent>{0,2} [<path>…]

Show changes between two ents, an ent and the working tree, an ent and the index file, or the index file and the working tree. The combination of what is compared with what is determined by the number of ents given to the command.

• When no <ent> is given, the working tree and the index file is compared, using git-diff-files.

• When one <ent> is given, the working tree and the named tree is compared, using git-diff-index. The option --cached can be given to compare the index file and the named tree.

• When two <ent>s are given, these two trees are compared using git-diff-tree.

--diff-options

--diff-options are passed to the git-diff-files, git-diff-index, and git-diff-tree commands. See the documentation for these commands for description.

<path>…

The <path> arguments are also passed to git-diff-* commands.

Various ways to check your working tree

$ git diff            (1)
$ git diff --cached   (2)
$ git diff HEAD       (3)

1. changes in the working tree since your last git-update-index.

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.

Limiting the diff output

$ git diff --diff-filter=MRC            (1)
$ git diff --name-status -r             (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. --name-status disables usual patch generation which in turn also disables recursive behavior, so without -r you would only see the directory name if there is a change in a file in a subdirectory.

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.

Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.

Part of the git(7) suite