Git Diff All Versions

Examples

• 10

  Show differences in working branch
  10

  git diff
  

  This will show the unstaged changes on the current branch from the commit before it. It will only show changes relative to the index, meaning it shows what you could add to the next commit, but haven't. To add (stage) these changes, you can use git add.

  If a file is staged, but was modified after it was staged, git diff will show the differences between the current file and the staged version.

  edited Aug 31 '16 at 9:41

  

  

  

  

  

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• 8

  Show changes between two commits
  8

  git diff 1234abc..6789def    # old   new
  

  E.g.: Show the changes made in the last 3 commits:

  git diff @~3..@    # HEAD -3   HEAD
  

  Note: the two dots (..) is optional, but adds clarity.

  This will show the textual difference between the commits, regardless of where they are in the tree.

  edited Oct 13 '16 at 16:22

  

  

  
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• 7

  Show differences for staged files
  7

  git diff --staged
  

  This will show the changes between the previous commit and the currently staged files.

  NOTE: You can also use the following commands to accomplish the same thing:

  git diff --cached
  

  Which is just a synonym for --staged or

  git status -v
  

  Which will trigger the verbose settings of the status command.

  edited Jul 27 '16 at 5:38

  

  

  
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• 4

  Comparing branches
  4

  Show the changes between the tip of new and the tip of original:

  git diff original new     # equivalent to original..new
  

  Show all changes on new since it branched from original:

  git diff original...new     # equivalent to $(git merge-base original new)..new
  

  If either original or new is omitted, defaults to HEAD.

  edited Jul 25 '16 at 17:39

  

  

  
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• 2

  Show both staged and unstaged changes
  2

  To show all staged and unstaged changes, use:

  git diff HEAD
  

  NOTE: You can also use the following command:

  git status -vv
  

  The difference being that the output of the latter will actually tell you which changes are staged for commit and which are not.

  edited Jul 27 '16 at 5:38

  

  

  
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• 2

  Show differences for a specific file or directory
  2

  git diff myfile.txt
  

  Shows the changes between the previous commit of the specified file (myfile.txt) and the locally-modified version that has not yet been staged.

  This also works for directories:

  git diff documentation
  

  The above shows the changes between the previous commit of all files in the specified directory (documentation/) and the locally-modified versions of these files, that have not yet been staged.

  To show the difference between some version of a file in a given commit and the local HEAD version you can specify the commit you want to compare against:

  git diff 27fa75e myfile.txt
  

  Or if you want to see the version between two separate commits:

  git diff 27fa75e ada9b57 myfile.txt
  

  To show the difference between the version specified by the hash ada9b57 and the latest commit on the branch my_branchname for only the relative directory called my_changed_directory/ you can do this:

  git diff ada9b57 my_branchname my_changed_directory/
  

  edited Dec 28 '16 at 23:30

  

  

  

  

  
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• 2

  Viewing a word-diff for long lines
  2

  git diff [HEAD|--staged...] --word-diff
  

  Rather than displaying lines changed, this will display differences within lines. For example, rather than:

  -Hello world
  +Hello world!
  

  Where the whole line is marked as changed, word-diff alters the output to:

  Hello [-world-]{+world!+}
  

  You can omit the markers [-, -], {+, +} by specifying --word-diff=color or --color-words. This will only use color coding to mark the difference:

  

  edited Jul 22 '16 at 18:54

  

  
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• 1

  Produce a patch-compatible diff
  1

  Sometimes you just need a diff to apply using patch. The regular git --diff does not work. Try this instead:

  git diff --no-prefix > some_file.patch
  

  Then somewhere else you can reverse it:

  patch -p0 < some_file.patch
  

  created Jul 23 '16 at 0:38

  
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• 1

  Show differences between current version and last version
  1

  git diff HEAD^ HEAD
  

  This will show the changes between the previous commit and the current commit.

  created Jul 22 '16 at 10:27

  
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• 1

  Using meld to see all modifications in the working directory
  1

  git difftool -t meld --dir-diff
  

  will show the working directory changes. Alternatively,

  git difftool -t meld --dir-diff  [COMMIT_A] [COMMIT_B]
  

  will show the differences between 2 specific commits.

  created Jul 21 '16 at 18:34

  
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• 0

  Diff UTF-16 encoded text and binary plist files
  0

  You can diff UTF-16 encoded files (localization strings file os iOS and macOS are examples) by specifying how git should diff these files.

  Add the following to your ~/.gitconfig file.

  [diff "utf16"]
  textconv = "iconv -f utf-16 -t utf-8"
  

  iconv is a program to convert different encodings.

  Then edit or create a .gitattributes file in the root of the repository where you want to use it. Or just edit ~/.gitattributes.

  *.strings diff=utf16
  

  This will convert all files ending in .strings before git diffs.

  You can do similar things for other files, that can be converted to text.

  For binary plist files you edit .gitconfig

  [diff "plist"]
  textconv = plutil -convert xml1 -o -
  

  and .gitattributes

  *.plist diff=plist
  

  created Jul 22 '16 at 10:59

  
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• 0

  difference between two commit or branch
  0

  To view difference between two branch

  git diff <branch1>..<branch2>
  

  To view difference between two branch

  git diff <commitId1>..<commitId2>
  

  To view diff with current branch

  git diff <branch/commitId>
  

  To view summary of changes

  git diff --stat <branch/commitId>
  

  To view files that changed after a certain commit

  git diff --name-only <commitId>
  

  To view files that are different than a branch

  git diff --name-only <branchName>
  

  To view files that changed in a folder after a certain commit

  git diff --name-only <commitId> <folder_path>
  

  created Jul 31 '16 at 21:03

  
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• 0

  Show changes between two branches
  0

  git diff branch1..branch2
  

  created Jul 23 '16 at 0:38

  
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• 0

  Viewing a three-way merge including the common ancestor
  0

  git config --global merge.conflictstyle diff3
  

  Sets the diff3 style as default: instead of the usual format in conflicted sections, showing the two files:

  <<<<<<< HEAD
  left
  =======
  right
  >>>>>>> master
  

  it will include an additional section containing the original text (coming form the common ancestor):

  <<<<<<< HEAD
  first
  second
  ||||||| 
  first
  =======
  last
  >>>>>>> master
  

  This format makes it easier to understand merge-conflict, ie. in this case locally second has been added, while remote changed first to last, resolving to:

  last
  second
  

  The same resolution would have been much harder using the default:

  <<<<<<< HEAD
  first
  second
  =======
  last
  >>>>>>> master
  

  created Jul 22 '16 at 0:10

  
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