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         Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
  23         {git-diff? This is the default.}
  24 endif::git-format-patch[]
  25
  26 -u::
  27         Synonym for "-p".
  28
  29 -U<n>::
  30         Shorthand for "--unified=<n>".
  31
  32 --unified=<n>::
  33         Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of
  34         the usual three. Implies "-p".
  35
  36 --raw::
  37         Generate the raw format.
  38         {git-diff-core? This is the default.}
  39
  40 --patch-with-raw::
  41         Synonym for "-p --raw".
  42
  43 --stat[=width[,name-width]]::
  44         Generate a diffstat.  You can override the default
  45         output width for 80-column terminal by "--stat=width".
  46         The width of the filename part can be controlled by
  47         giving another width to it separated by a comma.
  48
  49 --numstat::
  50         Similar to \--stat, but shows number of added and
  51         deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without
  52         abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly.  For
  53         binary files, outputs two `-` instead of saying
  54         `0 0`.
  55
  56 --shortstat::
  57         Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
  58         number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
  59         lines.
  60
  61 --dirstat[=limit]::
  62         Output the distribution of relative amount of changes (number of lines added or
  63         removed) for each sub-directory. Directories with changes below
  64         a cut-off percent (3% by default) are not shown. The cut-off percent
  65         can be set with "--dirstat=limit". Changes in a child directory is not
  66         counted for the parent directory, unless "--cumulative" is used.
  67
  68 --dirstat-by-file[=limit]::
  69         Same as --dirstat, but counts changed files instead of lines.
  70
  71 --summary::
  72         Output a condensed summary of extended header information
  73         such as creations, renames and mode changes.
  74
  75 --patch-with-stat::
  76         Synonym for "-p --stat".
  77         {git-format-patch? This is the default.}
  78
  79 -z::
  80         NUL-line termination on output.  This affects the --raw
  81         output field terminator.  Also output from commands such
  82         as "git-log" will be delimited with NUL between commits.
  83
  84 --name-only::
  85         Show only names of changed files.
  86
  87 --name-status::
  88         Show only names and status of changed files. See the description
  89         of the `--diff-filter` option on what the status letters mean.
  90
  91 --color::
  92         Show colored diff.
  93
  94 --no-color::
  95         Turn off colored diff, even when the configuration file
  96         gives the default to color output.
  97
  98 --color-words::
  99         Show colored word diff, i.e. color words which have changed.
 100
 101 --no-renames::
 102         Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration
 103         file gives the default to do so.
 104
 105 --check::
 106         Warn if changes introduce trailing whitespace
 107         or an indent that uses a space before a tab. Exits with
 108         non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible with
 109         --exit-code.
 110
 111 --full-index::
 112         Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full
 113         pre- and post-image blob object names on the "index"
 114         line when generating patch format output.
 115
 116 --binary::
 117         In addition to --full-index, output "binary diff" that
 118         can be applied with "git apply".
 119
 120 --abbrev[=<n>]::
 121         Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
 122         name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
 123         lines, show only handful hexdigits prefix.  This is
 124         independent of --full-index option above, which controls
 125         the diff-patch output format.  Non default number of
 126         digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
 127
 128 -B::
 129         Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
 130
 131 -M::
 132         Detect renames.
 133
 134 -C::
 135         Detect copies as well as renames.  See also `--find-copies-harder`.
 136
 137 --diff-filter=[ACDMRTUXB*]::
 138         Select only files that are Added (`A`), Copied (`C`),
 139         Deleted (`D`), Modified (`M`), Renamed (`R`), have their
 140         type (i.e. regular file, symlink, submodule, ...) changed (`T`),
 141         are Unmerged (`U`), are
 142         Unknown (`X`), or have had their pairing Broken (`B`).
 143         Any combination of the filter characters may be used.
 144         When `*` (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all
 145         paths are selected if there is any file that matches
 146         other criteria in the comparison; if there is no file
 147         that matches other criteria, nothing is selected.
 148
 149 --find-copies-harder::
 150         For performance reasons, by default, `-C` option finds copies only
 151         if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
 152         changeset.  This flag makes the command
 153         inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of
 154         copy.  This is a very expensive operation for large
 155         projects, so use it with caution.  Giving more than one
 156         `-C` option has the same effect.
 157
 158 -l<num>::
 159         -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n
 160         is the number of potential rename/copy targets.  This
 161         option prevents rename/copy detection from running if
 162         the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified
 163         number.
 164
 165 -S<string>::
 166         Look for differences that contain the change in <string>.
 167
 168 --pickaxe-all::
 169         When -S finds a change, show all the changes in that
 170         changeset, not just the files that contain the change
 171         in <string>.
 172
 173 --pickaxe-regex::
 174         Make the <string> not a plain string but an extended POSIX
 175         regex to match.
 176
 177 -O<orderfile>::
 178         Output the patch in the order specified in the
 179         <orderfile>, which has one shell glob pattern per line.
 180
 181 -R::
 182         Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
 183         on-disk file to tree contents.
 184
 185 --relative[=<path>]::
 186         When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be
 187         told to exclude changes outside the directory and show
 188         pathnames relative to it with this option.  When you are
 189         not in a subdirectory (e.g. in a bare repository), you
 190         can name which subdirectory to make the output relative
 191         to by giving a <path> as an argument.
 192
 193 --text::
 194         Treat all files as text.
 195
 196 -a::
 197         Shorthand for "--text".
 198
 199 --ignore-space-at-eol::
 200         Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
 201
 202 --ignore-space-change::
 203         Ignore changes in amount of whitespace.  This ignores whitespace
 204         at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or
 205         more whitespace characters to be equivalent.
 206
 207 -b::
 208         Shorthand for "--ignore-space-change".
 209
 210 --ignore-all-space::
 211         Ignore whitespace when comparing lines.  This ignores
 212         differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
 213         line has none.
 214
 215 -w::
 216         Shorthand for "--ignore-all-space".
 217
 218 --inter-hunk-context=<lines>::
 219         Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number
 220         of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other.
 221
 222 --exit-code::
 223         Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1).
 224         That is, it exits with 1 if there were differences and
 225         0 means no differences.
 226
 227 --quiet::
 228         Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
 229
 230 --ext-diff::
 231         Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
 232         external diff driver with linkgit:gitattributes[5], you need
 233         to use this option with linkgit:git-log[1] and friends.
 234
 235 --no-ext-diff::
 236         Disallow external diff drivers.
 237
 238 --ignore-submodules::
 239         Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation.
 240
 241 --src-prefix=<prefix>::
 242         Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
 243
 244 --dst-prefix=<prefix>::
 245         Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
 246
 247 --no-prefix::
 248         Do not show any source or destination prefix.
 249
 250 For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
 251 linkgit:gitdiffcore[7].