Documentation/diff-options.txt

   1 // Please don't remove this comment as asciidoc behaves badly when
   2 // the first non-empty line is ifdef/ifndef. The symptom is that
   3 // without this comment the <git-diff-core> attribute conditionally
   4 // defined below ends up being defined unconditionally.
   5 // Last checked with asciidoc 7.0.2.
   6
   7 ifndef::git-format-patch[]
   8 ifndef::git-diff[]
   9 ifndef::git-log[]
  10 :git-diff-core: 1
  11 endif::git-log[]
  12 endif::git-diff[]
  13 endif::git-format-patch[]
  14
  15 ifdef::git-format-patch[]
  16 -p::
  17         Generate patches without diffstat.
  18 endif::git-format-patch[]
  19
  20 ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  21 -p::
  22 -u::
  23         Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
  24         {git-diff? This is the default.}
  25 endif::git-format-patch[]
  26
  27 -U<n>::
  28 --unified=<n>::
  29         Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of
  30         the usual three. Implies "-p".
  31
  32 --raw::
  33         Generate the raw format.
  34         {git-diff-core? This is the default.}
  35
  36 --patch-with-raw::
  37         Synonym for "-p --raw".
  38
  39 --stat[=width[,name-width]]::
  40         Generate a diffstat.  You can override the default
  41         output width for 80-column terminal by "--stat=width".
  42         The width of the filename part can be controlled by
  43         giving another width to it separated by a comma.
  44
  45 --numstat::
  46         Similar to \--stat, but shows number of added and
  47         deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without
  48         abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly.  For
  49         binary files, outputs two `-` instead of saying
  50         `0 0`.
  51
  52 --shortstat::
  53         Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
  54         number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
  55         lines.
  56
  57 --dirstat[=limit]::
  58         Output the distribution of relative amount of changes (number of lines added or
  59         removed) for each sub-directory. Directories with changes below
  60         a cut-off percent (3% by default) are not shown. The cut-off percent
  61         can be set with "--dirstat=limit". Changes in a child directory is not
  62         counted for the parent directory, unless "--cumulative" is used.
  63
  64 --dirstat-by-file[=limit]::
  65         Same as --dirstat, but counts changed files instead of lines.
  66
  67 --summary::
  68         Output a condensed summary of extended header information
  69         such as creations, renames and mode changes.
  70
  71 --patch-with-stat::
  72         Synonym for "-p --stat".
  73         {git-format-patch? This is the default.}
  74
  75 -z::
  76         NUL-line termination on output.  This affects the --raw
  77         output field terminator.  Also output from commands such
  78         as "git-log" will be delimited with NUL between commits.
  79
  80 --name-only::
  81         Show only names of changed files.
  82
  83 --name-status::
  84         Show only names and status of changed files. See the description
  85         of the `--diff-filter` option on what the status letters mean.
  86
  87 --color::
  88         Show colored diff.
  89
  90 --no-color::
  91         Turn off colored diff, even when the configuration file
  92         gives the default to color output.
  93
  94 --color-words::
  95         Show colored word diff, i.e. color words which have changed.
  96
  97 --no-renames::
  98         Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration
  99         file gives the default to do so.
 100
 101 --check::
 102         Warn if changes introduce trailing whitespace
 103         or an indent that uses a space before a tab. Exits with
 104         non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible with
 105         --exit-code.
 106
 107 --full-index::
 108         Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full
 109         pre- and post-image blob object names on the "index"
 110         line when generating patch format output.
 111
 112 --binary::
 113         In addition to --full-index, output "binary diff" that
 114         can be applied with "git apply".
 115
 116 --abbrev[=<n>]::
 117         Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
 118         name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
 119         lines, show only handful hexdigits prefix.  This is
 120         independent of --full-index option above, which controls
 121         the diff-patch output format.  Non default number of
 122         digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
 123
 124 -B::
 125         Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
 126
 127 -M::
 128         Detect renames.
 129
 130 -C::
 131         Detect copies as well as renames.  See also `--find-copies-harder`.
 132
 133 --diff-filter=[ACDMRTUXB*]::
 134         Select only files that are Added (`A`), Copied (`C`),
 135         Deleted (`D`), Modified (`M`), Renamed (`R`), have their
 136         type (i.e. regular file, symlink, submodule, ...) changed (`T`),
 137         are Unmerged (`U`), are
 138         Unknown (`X`), or have had their pairing Broken (`B`).
 139         Any combination of the filter characters may be used.
 140         When `*` (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all
 141         paths are selected if there is any file that matches
 142         other criteria in the comparison; if there is no file
 143         that matches other criteria, nothing is selected.
 144
 145 --find-copies-harder::
 146         For performance reasons, by default, `-C` option finds copies only
 147         if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
 148         changeset.  This flag makes the command
 149         inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of
 150         copy.  This is a very expensive operation for large
 151         projects, so use it with caution.  Giving more than one
 152         `-C` option has the same effect.
 153
 154 -l<num>::
 155         -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n
 156         is the number of potential rename/copy targets.  This
 157         option prevents rename/copy detection from running if
 158         the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified
 159         number.
 160
 161 -S<string>::
 162         Look for differences that contain the change in <string>.
 163
 164 --pickaxe-all::
 165         When -S finds a change, show all the changes in that
 166         changeset, not just the files that contain the change
 167         in <string>.
 168
 169 --pickaxe-regex::
 170         Make the <string> not a plain string but an extended POSIX
 171         regex to match.
 172
 173 -O<orderfile>::
 174         Output the patch in the order specified in the
 175         <orderfile>, which has one shell glob pattern per line.
 176
 177 -R::
 178         Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
 179         on-disk file to tree contents.
 180
 181 --relative[=<path>]::
 182         When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be
 183         told to exclude changes outside the directory and show
 184         pathnames relative to it with this option.  When you are
 185         not in a subdirectory (e.g. in a bare repository), you
 186         can name which subdirectory to make the output relative
 187         to by giving a <path> as an argument.
 188
 189 -a::
 190 --text::
 191         Treat all files as text.
 192
 193 --ignore-space-at-eol::
 194         Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
 195
 196 -b::
 197 --ignore-space-change::
 198         Ignore changes in amount of whitespace.  This ignores whitespace
 199         at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or
 200         more whitespace characters to be equivalent.
 201
 202 -w::
 203 --ignore-all-space::
 204         Ignore whitespace when comparing lines.  This ignores
 205         differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
 206         line has none.
 207
 208 --exit-code::
 209         Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1).
 210         That is, it exits with 1 if there were differences and
 211         0 means no differences.
 212
 213 --quiet::
 214         Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
 215
 216 --ext-diff::
 217         Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
 218         external diff driver with linkgit:gitattributes[5], you need
 219         to use this option with linkgit:git-log[1] and friends.
 220
 221 --no-ext-diff::
 222         Disallow external diff drivers.
 223
 224 --ignore-submodules::
 225         Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation.
 226
 227 --src-prefix=<prefix>::
 228         Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
 229
 230 --dst-prefix=<prefix>::
 231         Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
 232
 233 --no-prefix::
 234         Do not show any source or destination prefix.
 235
 236 For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
 237 linkgit:gitdiffcore[7].