Documentation/diff-config.txt

   1 diff.autoRefreshIndex::
   2         When using 'git diff' to compare with work tree
   3         files, do not consider stat-only change as changed.
   4         Instead, silently run `git update-index --refresh` to
   5         update the cached stat information for paths whose
   6         contents in the work tree match the contents in the
   7         index.  This option defaults to true.  Note that this
   8         affects only 'git diff' Porcelain, and not lower level
   9         'diff' commands such as 'git diff-files'.
  10
  11 diff.dirstat::
  12         A comma separated list of `--dirstat` parameters specifying the
  13         default behavior of the `--dirstat` option to linkgit:git-diff[1]`
  14         and friends. The defaults can be overridden on the command line
  15         (using `--dirstat=<param1,param2,...>`). The fallback defaults
  16         (when not changed by `diff.dirstat`) are `changes,noncumulative,3`.
  17         The following parameters are available:
  18 +
  19 --
  20 `changes`;;
  21         Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have been
  22         removed from the source, or added to the destination. This ignores
  23         the amount of pure code movements within a file.  In other words,
  24         rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much as other changes.
  25         This is the default behavior when no parameter is given.
  26 `lines`;;
  27         Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based diff
  28         analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts. (For binary
  29         files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary files have no
  30         natural concept of lines). This is a more expensive `--dirstat`
  31         behavior than the `changes` behavior, but it does count rearranged
  32         lines within a file as much as other changes. The resulting output
  33         is consistent with what you get from the other `--*stat` options.
  34 `files`;;
  35         Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files changed.
  36         Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat analysis. This is
  37         the computationally cheapest `--dirstat` behavior, since it does
  38         not have to look at the file contents at all.
  39 `cumulative`;;
  40         Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory as well.
  41         Note that when using `cumulative`, the sum of the percentages
  42         reported may exceed 100%. The default (non-cumulative) behavior can
  43         be specified with the `noncumulative` parameter.
  44 <limit>;;
  45         An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by default).
  46         Directories contributing less than this percentage of the changes
  47         are not shown in the output.
  48 --
  49 +
  50 Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring
  51 directories with less than 10% of the total amount of changed files,
  52 and accumulating child directory counts in the parent directories:
  53 `files,10,cumulative`.
  54
  55 diff.statGraphWidth::
  56         Limit the width of the graph part in --stat output. If set, applies
  57         to all commands generating --stat output except format-patch.
  58
  59 diff.context::
  60         Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the default
  61         of 3. This value is overridden by the -U option.
  62
  63 diff.external::
  64         If this config variable is set, diff generation is not
  65         performed using the internal diff machinery, but using the
  66         given command.  Can be overridden with the `GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF'
  67         environment variable.  The command is called with parameters
  68         as described under "git Diffs" in linkgit:git[1].  Note: if
  69         you want to use an external diff program only on a subset of
  70         your files, you might want to use linkgit:gitattributes[5] instead.
  71
  72 diff.ignoreSubmodules::
  73         Sets the default value of --ignore-submodules. Note that this
  74         affects only 'git diff' Porcelain, and not lower level 'diff'
  75         commands such as 'git diff-files'. 'git checkout' also honors
  76         this setting when reporting uncommitted changes. Setting it to
  77         'all' disables the submodule summary normally shown by 'git commit'
  78         and 'git status' when 'status.submoduleSummary' is set unless it is
  79         overridden by using the --ignore-submodules command-line option.
  80         The 'git submodule' commands are not affected by this setting.
  81
  82 diff.mnemonicPrefix::
  83         If set, 'git diff' uses a prefix pair that is different from the
  84         standard "a/" and "b/" depending on what is being compared.  When
  85         this configuration is in effect, reverse diff output also swaps
  86         the order of the prefixes:
  87 `git diff`;;
  88         compares the (i)ndex and the (w)ork tree;
  89 `git diff HEAD`;;
  90          compares a (c)ommit and the (w)ork tree;
  91 `git diff --cached`;;
  92         compares a (c)ommit and the (i)ndex;
  93 `git diff HEAD:file1 file2`;;
  94         compares an (o)bject and a (w)ork tree entity;
  95 `git diff --no-index a b`;;
  96         compares two non-git things (1) and (2).
  97
  98 diff.noprefix::
  99         If set, 'git diff' does not show any source or destination prefix.
 100
 101 diff.orderFile::
 102         File indicating how to order files within a diff, using
 103         one shell glob pattern per line.
 104         Can be overridden by the '-O' option to linkgit:git-diff[1].
 105
 106 diff.renameLimit::
 107         The number of files to consider when performing the copy/rename
 108         detection; equivalent to the 'git diff' option '-l'.
 109
 110 diff.renames::
 111         Tells Git to detect renames.  If set to any boolean value, it
 112         will enable basic rename detection.  If set to "copies" or
 113         "copy", it will detect copies, as well.
 114
 115 diff.suppressBlankEmpty::
 116         A boolean to inhibit the standard behavior of printing a space
 117         before each empty output line. Defaults to false.
 118
 119 diff.submodule::
 120         Specify the format in which differences in submodules are
 121         shown.  The "log" format lists the commits in the range like
 122         linkgit:git-submodule[1] `summary` does.  The "short" format
 123         format just shows the names of the commits at the beginning
 124         and end of the range.  Defaults to short.
 125
 126 diff.wordRegex::
 127         A POSIX Extended Regular Expression used to determine what is a "word"
 128         when performing word-by-word difference calculations.  Character
 129         sequences that match the regular expression are "words", all other
 130         characters are *ignorable* whitespace.
 131
 132 diff.<driver>.command::
 133         The custom diff driver command.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5]
 134         for details.
 135
 136 diff.<driver>.xfuncname::
 137         The regular expression that the diff driver should use to
 138         recognize the hunk header.  A built-in pattern may also be used.
 139         See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 140
 141 diff.<driver>.binary::
 142         Set this option to true to make the diff driver treat files as
 143         binary.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 144
 145 diff.<driver>.textconv::
 146         The command that the diff driver should call to generate the
 147         text-converted version of a file.  The result of the
 148         conversion is used to generate a human-readable diff.  See
 149         linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 150
 151 diff.<driver>.wordRegex::
 152         The regular expression that the diff driver should use to
 153         split words in a line.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for
 154         details.
 155
 156 diff.<driver>.cachetextconv::
 157         Set this option to true to make the diff driver cache the text
 158         conversion outputs.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 159
 160 diff.tool::
 161         Controls which diff tool is used by linkgit:git-difftool[1].
 162         This variable overrides the value configured in `merge.tool`.
 163         The list below shows the valid built-in values.
 164         Any other value is treated as a custom diff tool and requires
 165         that a corresponding difftool.<tool>.cmd variable is defined.
 166
 167 include::mergetools-diff.txt[]
 168
 169 diff.compactionHeuristic::
 170         Set this option to enable an experimental heuristic that
 171         shifts the hunk boundary in an attempt to make the resulting
 172         patch easier to read.
 173
 174 diff.algorithm::
 175         Choose a diff algorithm.  The variants are as follows:
 176 +
 177 --
 178 `default`, `myers`;;
 179         The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the default.
 180 `minimal`;;
 181         Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
 182         produced.
 183 `patience`;;
 184         Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
 185 `histogram`;;
 186         This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
 187         low-occurrence common elements".
 188 --
 189 +