Documentation/config/diff.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.interHunkContext::
  64         Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number
  65         of lines, thereby fusing the hunks that are close to each other.
  66         This value serves as the default for the `--inter-hunk-context`
  67         command line option.
  68
  69 diff.external::
  70         If this config variable is set, diff generation is not
  71         performed using the internal diff machinery, but using the
  72         given command.  Can be overridden with the `GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF'
  73         environment variable.  The command is called with parameters
  74         as described under "git Diffs" in linkgit:git[1].  Note: if
  75         you want to use an external diff program only on a subset of
  76         your files, you might want to use linkgit:gitattributes[5] instead.
  77
  78 diff.ignoreSubmodules::
  79         Sets the default value of --ignore-submodules. Note that this
  80         affects only 'git diff' Porcelain, and not lower level 'diff'
  81         commands such as 'git diff-files'. 'git checkout'
  82         and 'git switch' also honor
  83         this setting when reporting uncommitted changes. Setting it to
  84         'all' disables the submodule summary normally shown by 'git commit'
  85         and 'git status' when `status.submoduleSummary` is set unless it is
  86         overridden by using the --ignore-submodules command-line option.
  87         The 'git submodule' commands are not affected by this setting.
  88         By default this is set to untracked so that any untracked
  89         submodules are ignored.
  90
  91 diff.mnemonicPrefix::
  92         If set, 'git diff' uses a prefix pair that is different from the
  93         standard "a/" and "b/" depending on what is being compared.  When
  94         this configuration is in effect, reverse diff output also swaps
  95         the order of the prefixes:
  96 `git diff`;;
  97         compares the (i)ndex and the (w)ork tree;
  98 `git diff HEAD`;;
  99          compares a (c)ommit and the (w)ork tree;
 100 `git diff --cached`;;
 101         compares a (c)ommit and the (i)ndex;
 102 `git diff HEAD:file1 file2`;;
 103         compares an (o)bject and a (w)ork tree entity;
 104 `git diff --no-index a b`;;
 105         compares two non-git things (1) and (2).
 106
 107 diff.noprefix::
 108         If set, 'git diff' does not show any source or destination prefix.
 109
 110 diff.relative::
 111         If set to 'true', 'git diff' does not show changes outside of the directory
 112         and show pathnames relative to the current directory.
 113
 114 diff.orderFile::
 115         File indicating how to order files within a diff.
 116         See the '-O' option to linkgit:git-diff[1] for details.
 117         If `diff.orderFile` is a relative pathname, it is treated as
 118         relative to the top of the working tree.
 119
 120 diff.renameLimit::
 121         The number of files to consider in the exhaustive portion of
 122         copy/rename detection; equivalent to the 'git diff' option
 123         `-l`.  If not set, the default value is currently 1000.  This
 124         setting has no effect if rename detection is turned off.
 125
 126 diff.renames::
 127         Whether and how Git detects renames.  If set to "false",
 128         rename detection is disabled. If set to "true", basic rename
 129         detection is enabled.  If set to "copies" or "copy", Git will
 130         detect copies, as well.  Defaults to true.  Note that this
 131         affects only 'git diff' Porcelain like linkgit:git-diff[1] and
 132         linkgit:git-log[1], and not lower level commands such as
 133         linkgit:git-diff-files[1].
 134
 135 diff.suppressBlankEmpty::
 136         A boolean to inhibit the standard behavior of printing a space
 137         before each empty output line. Defaults to false.
 138
 139 diff.submodule::
 140         Specify the format in which differences in submodules are
 141         shown.  The "short" format just shows the names of the commits
 142         at the beginning and end of the range. The "log" format lists
 143         the commits in the range like linkgit:git-submodule[1] `summary`
 144         does. The "diff" format shows an inline diff of the changed
 145         contents of the submodule. Defaults to "short".
 146
 147 diff.wordRegex::
 148         A POSIX Extended Regular Expression used to determine what is a "word"
 149         when performing word-by-word difference calculations.  Character
 150         sequences that match the regular expression are "words", all other
 151         characters are *ignorable* whitespace.
 152
 153 diff.<driver>.command::
 154         The custom diff driver command.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5]
 155         for details.
 156
 157 diff.<driver>.xfuncname::
 158         The regular expression that the diff driver should use to
 159         recognize the hunk header.  A built-in pattern may also be used.
 160         See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 161
 162 diff.<driver>.binary::
 163         Set this option to true to make the diff driver treat files as
 164         binary.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 165
 166 diff.<driver>.textconv::
 167         The command that the diff driver should call to generate the
 168         text-converted version of a file.  The result of the
 169         conversion is used to generate a human-readable diff.  See
 170         linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 171
 172 diff.<driver>.wordRegex::
 173         The regular expression that the diff driver should use to
 174         split words in a line.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for
 175         details.
 176
 177 diff.<driver>.cachetextconv::
 178         Set this option to true to make the diff driver cache the text
 179         conversion outputs.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 180
 181 diff.tool::
 182         Controls which diff tool is used by linkgit:git-difftool[1].
 183         This variable overrides the value configured in `merge.tool`.
 184         The list below shows the valid built-in values.
 185         Any other value is treated as a custom diff tool and requires
 186         that a corresponding difftool.<tool>.cmd variable is defined.
 187
 188 diff.guitool::
 189         Controls which diff tool is used by linkgit:git-difftool[1] when
 190         the -g/--gui flag is specified. This variable overrides the value
 191         configured in `merge.guitool`. The list below shows the valid
 192         built-in values. Any other value is treated as a custom diff tool
 193         and requires that a corresponding difftool.<guitool>.cmd variable
 194         is defined.
 195
 196 include::../mergetools-diff.txt[]
 197
 198 diff.indentHeuristic::
 199         Set this option to `false` to disable the default heuristics
 200         that shift diff hunk boundaries to make patches easier to read.
 201
 202 diff.algorithm::
 203         Choose a diff algorithm.  The variants are as follows:
 204 +
 205 --
 206 `default`, `myers`;;
 207         The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the default.
 208 `minimal`;;
 209         Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
 210         produced.
 211 `patience`;;
 212         Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
 213 `histogram`;;
 214         This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
 215         low-occurrence common elements".
 216 --
 217 +
 218
 219 diff.wsErrorHighlight::
 220         Highlight whitespace errors in the `context`, `old` or `new`
 221         lines of the diff.  Multiple values are separated by comma,
 222         `none` resets previous values, `default` reset the list to
 223         `new` and `all` is a shorthand for `old,new,context`.  The
 224         whitespace errors are colored with `color.diff.whitespace`.
 225         The command line option `--ws-error-highlight=<kind>`
 226         overrides this setting.
 227
 228 diff.colorMoved::
 229         If set to either a valid `<mode>` or a true value, moved lines
 230         in a diff are colored differently, for details of valid modes
 231         see '--color-moved' in linkgit:git-diff[1]. If simply set to
 232         true the default color mode will be used. When set to false,
 233         moved lines are not colored.
 234
 235 diff.colorMovedWS::
 236         When moved lines are colored using e.g. the `diff.colorMoved` setting,
 237         this option controls the `<mode>` how spaces are treated
 238         for details of valid modes see '--color-moved-ws' in linkgit:git-diff[1].