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 --patience::
  40         Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
  41
  42 --stat[=width[,name-width]]::
  43         Generate a diffstat.  You can override the default
  44         output width for 80-column terminal by "--stat=width".
  45         The width of the filename part can be controlled by
  46         giving another width to it separated by a comma.
  47
  48 --numstat::
  49         Similar to \--stat, but shows number of added and
  50         deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without
  51         abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly.  For
  52         binary files, outputs two `-` instead of saying
  53         `0 0`.
  54
  55 --shortstat::
  56         Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
  57         number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
  58         lines.
  59
  60 --dirstat[=limit]::
  61         Output the distribution of relative amount of changes (number of lines added or
  62         removed) for each sub-directory. Directories with changes below
  63         a cut-off percent (3% by default) are not shown. The cut-off percent
  64         can be set with "--dirstat=limit". Changes in a child directory is not
  65         counted for the parent directory, unless "--cumulative" is used.
  66
  67 --dirstat-by-file[=limit]::
  68         Same as --dirstat, but counts changed files instead of lines.
  69
  70 --summary::
  71         Output a condensed summary of extended header information
  72         such as creations, renames and mode changes.
  73
  74 --patch-with-stat::
  75         Synonym for "-p --stat".
  76         {git-format-patch? This is the default.}
  77
  78 -z::
  79         NUL-line termination on output.  This affects the --raw
  80         output field terminator.  Also output from commands such
  81         as "git-log" will be delimited with NUL between commits.
  82
  83 --name-only::
  84         Show only names of changed files.
  85
  86 --name-status::
  87         Show only names and status of changed files. See the description
  88         of the `--diff-filter` option on what the status letters mean.
  89
  90 --color::
  91         Show colored diff.
  92
  93 --no-color::
  94         Turn off colored diff, even when the configuration file
  95         gives the default to color output.
  96
  97 --color-words[=<regex>]::
  98         Show colored word diff, i.e., color words which have changed.
  99         By default, words are separated by whitespace.
 100 +
 101 When a <regex> is specified, every non-overlapping match of the
 102 <regex> is considered a word.  Anything between these matches is
 103 considered whitespace and ignored(!) for the purposes of finding
 104 differences.  You may want to append `|[^[:space:]]` to your regular
 105 expression to make sure that it matches all non-whitespace characters.
 106 A match that contains a newline is silently truncated(!) at the
 107 newline.
 108 +
 109 The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration option, see
 110 linkgit:gitattributes[1] or linkgit:git-config[1].  Giving it explicitly
 111 overrides any diff driver or configuration setting.  Diff drivers
 112 override configuration settings.
 113
 114 --no-renames::
 115         Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration
 116         file gives the default to do so.
 117
 118 --check::
 119         Warn if changes introduce trailing whitespace
 120         or an indent that uses a space before a tab. Exits with
 121         non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible with
 122         --exit-code.
 123
 124 --full-index::
 125         Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full
 126         pre- and post-image blob object names on the "index"
 127         line when generating patch format output.
 128
 129 --binary::
 130         In addition to --full-index, output "binary diff" that
 131         can be applied with "git apply".
 132
 133 --abbrev[=<n>]::
 134         Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
 135         name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
 136         lines, show only a partial prefix.  This is
 137         independent of --full-index option above, which controls
 138         the diff-patch output format.  Non default number of
 139         digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
 140
 141 -B::
 142         Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
 143
 144 -M::
 145         Detect renames.
 146
 147 -C::
 148         Detect copies as well as renames.  See also `--find-copies-harder`.
 149
 150 --diff-filter=[ACDMRTUXB*]::
 151         Select only files that are Added (`A`), Copied (`C`),
 152         Deleted (`D`), Modified (`M`), Renamed (`R`), have their
 153         type (i.e. regular file, symlink, submodule, ...) changed (`T`),
 154         are Unmerged (`U`), are
 155         Unknown (`X`), or have had their pairing Broken (`B`).
 156         Any combination of the filter characters may be used.
 157         When `*` (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all
 158         paths are selected if there is any file that matches
 159         other criteria in the comparison; if there is no file
 160         that matches other criteria, nothing is selected.
 161
 162 --find-copies-harder::
 163         For performance reasons, by default, `-C` option finds copies only
 164         if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
 165         changeset.  This flag makes the command
 166         inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of
 167         copy.  This is a very expensive operation for large
 168         projects, so use it with caution.  Giving more than one
 169         `-C` option has the same effect.
 170
 171 -l<num>::
 172         -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n
 173         is the number of potential rename/copy targets.  This
 174         option prevents rename/copy detection from running if
 175         the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified
 176         number.
 177
 178 -S<string>::
 179         Look for differences that introduce or remove an instance of
 180         <string>. Note that this is different than the string simply
 181         appearing in diff output; see the 'pickaxe' entry in
 182         linkgit:gitdiffcore[7] for more details.
 183
 184 --pickaxe-all::
 185         When -S finds a change, show all the changes in that
 186         changeset, not just the files that contain the change
 187         in <string>.
 188
 189 --pickaxe-regex::
 190         Make the <string> not a plain string but an extended POSIX
 191         regex to match.
 192
 193 -O<orderfile>::
 194         Output the patch in the order specified in the
 195         <orderfile>, which has one shell glob pattern per line.
 196
 197 -R::
 198         Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
 199         on-disk file to tree contents.
 200
 201 --relative[=<path>]::
 202         When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be
 203         told to exclude changes outside the directory and show
 204         pathnames relative to it with this option.  When you are
 205         not in a subdirectory (e.g. in a bare repository), you
 206         can name which subdirectory to make the output relative
 207         to by giving a <path> as an argument.
 208
 209 -a::
 210 --text::
 211         Treat all files as text.
 212
 213 --ignore-space-at-eol::
 214         Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
 215
 216 -b::
 217 --ignore-space-change::
 218         Ignore changes in amount of whitespace.  This ignores whitespace
 219         at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or
 220         more whitespace characters to be equivalent.
 221
 222 -w::
 223 --ignore-all-space::
 224         Ignore whitespace when comparing lines.  This ignores
 225         differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
 226         line has none.
 227
 228 --inter-hunk-context=<lines>::
 229         Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number
 230         of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other.
 231
 232 --exit-code::
 233         Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1).
 234         That is, it exits with 1 if there were differences and
 235         0 means no differences.
 236
 237 --quiet::
 238         Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
 239
 240 --ext-diff::
 241         Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
 242         external diff driver with linkgit:gitattributes[5], you need
 243         to use this option with linkgit:git-log[1] and friends.
 244
 245 --no-ext-diff::
 246         Disallow external diff drivers.
 247
 248 --ignore-submodules::
 249         Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation.
 250
 251 --src-prefix=<prefix>::
 252         Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
 253
 254 --dst-prefix=<prefix>::
 255         Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
 256
 257 --no-prefix::
 258         Do not show any source or destination prefix.
 259
 260 For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
 261 linkgit:gitdiffcore[7].