GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1) Git Manual GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1)NAMEgit-diff-index - Compares content and mode of blobs between the index
and repository
SYNOPSISgit-diff-index [-m] [--cached] [<common diff options>] <tree-ish>
[<path>...]
DESCRIPTION
Compares the content and mode of the blobs found via a tree object with
the content of the current index and, optionally ignoring the stat
state of the file on disk. When paths are specified, compares only
those named paths. Otherwise all entries in the index are compared.
OPTIONS-p Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
-u Synonym for "-p".
-U<n> Shorthand for "--unified=<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".
--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 only the sub-directories that are impacted by a diff, and
to what degree they are impacted. You can override the default
cut-off in percent (3) by "--dirstat=limit". If you want to
enable "cumulative" directory statistics, you can use the
"--cumulative" flag, which adds up percentages recursively even
when they have been already reported for a sub-directory.
--summary
Output a condensed summary of extended header information such
as creations, renames and mode changes.
--patch-with-stat
Synonym for "-p --stat".
-z NUL-line termination on output. This affects the --raw output
field terminator. Also output from commands such as "git-log"
will be delimited with NUL between commits.
--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.
--color
Show colored diff.
--no-color
Turn off colored diff, even when the configuration file gives
the default to color output.
--color-words
Show colored word diff, i.e. color words which have changed.
--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 characters, show full object name
of pre- and post-image blob on the "index" line when generating
a patch format output.
--binary
In addition to --full-index, output "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
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. See also --find-copies-harder.
--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. Giving
more than one -C option has the same effect.
-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.
--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.
--text Treat all files as text.
-a Shorthand for "--text".
--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.
-b Shorthand for "--ignore-space-change".
--ignore-all-space
Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
-w Shorthand for "--ignore-all-space".
--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.
--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
[1]diffcore documentation.
<tree-ish>
The id of a tree object to diff against.
--cached
do not consider the on-disk file at all
-m By default, files recorded in the index but not checked out are
reported as deleted. This flag makes "git-diff-index" say that
all non-checked-out files are up to date.
OUTPUT FORMAT
The 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.
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.
<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 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>
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.
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.
COMBINED DIFF FORMAT
"git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff" can take -c or --cc
option to produce combined diff. For showing a merge commit with "git
log -p", this is the default format. 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 --c 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 last file, 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 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").
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.
OPERATING MODES
You can choose whether you want to trust the index file entirely (using
the --cached flag) or ask the diff logic to show any files that don't
match the stat state as being "tentatively changed". Both of these
operations are very useful indeed.
CACHED MODE
If --cached is specified, it allows you to ask:
show me the differences between HEAD and the current index
contents (the ones I'd write with a "git-write-tree")
For example, let's say that you have worked on your working directory,
updated some files in the index and are ready to commit. You want to
see exactly what you are going to commit, without having to write a new
tree object and compare it that way, and to do that, you just do
git-diff-index--cached HEAD
Example: let's say I had renamed commit.c to git-commit.c, and I had
done an "git-update-index" to make that effective in the index file.
"git-diff-files" wouldn't show anything at all, since the index file
matches my working directory. But doing a "git-diff-index" does:
torvalds@ppc970:~/git> git-diff-index--cached HEAD
-100644 blob 4161aecc6700a2eb579e842af0b7f22b98443f74 commit.c
+100644 blob 4161aecc6700a2eb579e842af0b7f22b98443f74 git-commit.c
You can see easily that the above is a rename.
In fact, "git-diff-index --cached" should always be entirely equivalent
to actually doing a "git-write-tree" and comparing that. Except this
one is much nicer for the case where you just want to check where you
are.
So doing a "git-diff-index --cached" is basically very useful when you
are asking yourself "what have I already marked for being committed,
and what's the difference to a previous tree".
NON-CACHED MODE
The "non-cached" mode takes a different approach, and is potentially
the more useful of the two in that what it does can't be emulated with
a "git-write-tree" + "git-diff-tree". Thus that's the default mode. The
non-cached version asks the question:
show me the differences between HEAD and the currently checked out
tree - index contents _and_ files that aren't up-to-date
which is obviously a very useful question too, since that tells you
what you could commit. Again, the output matches the "git-diff-tree -r"
output to a tee, but with a twist.
The twist is that if some file doesn't match the index, we don't have a
backing store thing for it, and we use the magic "all-zero" sha1 to
show that. So let's say that you have edited kernel/sched.c, but have
not actually done a "git-update-index" on it yet - there is no "object"
associated with the new state, and you get:
torvalds@ppc970:~/v2.6/linux> git-diff-index HEAD
*100644->100664 blob 7476bb......->000000...... kernel/sched.c
i.e., it shows that the tree has changed, and that kernel/sched.c has
is not up-to-date and may contain new stuff. The all-zero sha1 means
that to get the real diff, you need to look at the object in the
working directory directly rather than do an object-to-object diff.
Note
As with other commands of this type, "git-diff-index" does not actually
look at the contents of the file at all. So maybe kernel/sched.c hasn't
actually changed, and it's just that you touched it. In either case,
it's a note that you need to "git-update-index" it to make the index be
in sync.
Note
You can have a mixture of files show up as "has been updated" and "is
still dirty in the working directory" together. You can always tell
which file is in which state, since the "has been updated" ones show a
valid sha1, and the "not in sync with the index" ones will always have
the special all-zero sha1.
AUTHOR
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
DOCUMENTATION
Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list
<git@vger.kernel.org>.
GIT
Part of the git(7) suite
REFERENCES
1. diffcore documentation
diffcore.html
Git 1.5.5.2 10/21/2008 GIT-DIFF-INDEX(1)
