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         Whether and how Git detects renames.  If set to "false",
 112         rename detection is disabled. If set to "true", basic rename
 113         detection is enabled.  If set to "copies" or "copy", Git will
 114         detect copies, as well.  Defaults to true.  Note that this
 115         affects only 'git diff' Porcelain like linkgit:git-diff[1] and
 116         linkgit:git-log[1], and not lower level commands such as
 117         linkgit:git-diff-files[1].
 118
 119 diff.suppressBlankEmpty::
 120         A boolean to inhibit the standard behavior of printing a space
 121         before each empty output line. Defaults to false.
 122
 123 diff.submodule::
 124         Specify the format in which differences in submodules are
 125         shown.  The "log" format lists the commits in the range like
 126         linkgit:git-submodule[1] `summary` does.  The "short" format
 127         format just shows the names of the commits at the beginning
 128         and end of the range.  Defaults to short.
 129
 130 diff.wordRegex::
 131         A POSIX Extended Regular Expression used to determine what is a "word"
 132         when performing word-by-word difference calculations.  Character
 133         sequences that match the regular expression are "words", all other
 134         characters are *ignorable* whitespace.
 135
 136 diff.<driver>.command::
 137         The custom diff driver command.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5]
 138         for details.
 139
 140 diff.<driver>.xfuncname::
 141         The regular expression that the diff driver should use to
 142         recognize the hunk header.  A built-in pattern may also be used.
 143         See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 144
 145 diff.<driver>.binary::
 146         Set this option to true to make the diff driver treat files as
 147         binary.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 148
 149 diff.<driver>.textconv::
 150         The command that the diff driver should call to generate the
 151         text-converted version of a file.  The result of the
 152         conversion is used to generate a human-readable diff.  See
 153         linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 154
 155 diff.<driver>.wordRegex::
 156         The regular expression that the diff driver should use to
 157         split words in a line.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for
 158         details.
 159
 160 diff.<driver>.cachetextconv::
 161         Set this option to true to make the diff driver cache the text
 162         conversion outputs.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 163
 164 diff.tool::
 165         Controls which diff tool is used by linkgit:git-difftool[1].
 166         This variable overrides the value configured in `merge.tool`.
 167         The list below shows the valid built-in values.
 168         Any other value is treated as a custom diff tool and requires
 169         that a corresponding difftool.<tool>.cmd variable is defined.
 170
 171 include::mergetools-diff.txt[]
 172
 173 diff.indentHeuristic::
 174 diff.compactionHeuristic::
 175         Set one of these options to `true` to enable one of two
 176         experimental heuristics that shift diff hunk boundaries to
 177         make patches easier to read.
 178
 179 diff.algorithm::
 180         Choose a diff algorithm.  The variants are as follows:
 181 +
 182 --
 183 `default`, `myers`;;
 184         The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the default.
 185 `minimal`;;
 186         Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
 187         produced.
 188 `patience`;;
 189         Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
 190 `histogram`;;
 191         This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
 192         low-occurrence common elements".
 193 --
 194 +