Setup and Config
Getting and Creating Projects
Basic Snapshotting
Branching and Merging
Sharing and Updating Projects
Inspection and Comparison
Patching
Debugging
External Systems
Server Admin
Guides
- gitattributes
- Command-line interface conventions
- Everyday Git
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Glossary
- Hooks
- gitignore
- gitmodules
- Revisions
- Submodules
- Tutorial
- Workflows
- All guides...
Administration
Plumbing Commands
-
2.46.0
07/29/24
- 2.45.1 → 2.45.2 no changes
-
2.45.0
04/29/24
- 2.44.1 → 2.44.2 no changes
-
2.44.0
02/23/24
- 2.43.1 → 2.43.5 no changes
-
2.43.0
11/20/23
- 2.42.2 → 2.42.3 no changes
-
2.42.1
11/02/23
-
2.42.0
08/21/23
- 2.41.1 → 2.41.2 no changes
-
2.41.0
06/01/23
- 2.40.1 → 2.40.3 no changes
-
2.40.0
03/12/23
- 2.36.1 → 2.39.5 no changes
-
2.36.0
04/18/22
- 2.33.1 → 2.35.8 no changes
-
2.33.0
08/16/21
- 2.32.1 → 2.32.7 no changes
-
2.32.0
06/06/21
- 2.31.1 → 2.31.8 no changes
-
2.31.0
03/15/21
- -p
- -u
- --patch
-
Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
- -s
- --no-patch
-
Suppress diff output. Useful for commands like
git show
that show the patch by default, or to cancel the effect of--patch
. - -U<n>
- --unified=<n>
-
Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual three. Implies
-p
. - --raw
-
Generate the diff in raw format. This is the default.
- --patch-with-raw
-
Synonym for
-p --raw
. - --minimal
-
Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is produced.
- --patience
-
Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
- --histogram
-
Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.
- --diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}
-
Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
-
default
,myers
-
The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the default.
-
minimal
-
Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is produced.
-
patience
-
Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
-
histogram
-
This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support low-occurrence common elements".
For instance, if you configured diff.algorithm variable to a non-default value and want to use the default one, then you have to use
--diff-algorithm=default
option. -
- --stat[=<width>[,<name-width>[,<count>]]]
-
Generate a diffstat. By default, as much space as necessary will be used for the filename part, and the rest for the graph part. Maximum width defaults to terminal width, or 80 columns if not connected to a terminal, and can be overridden by
<width>
. The width of the filename part can be limited by giving another width<name-width>
after a comma. The width of the graph part can be limited by using--stat-graph-width=<width>
(affects all commands generating a stat graph) or by settingdiff.statGraphWidth=<width>
(does not affectgit format-patch
). By giving a third parameter<count>
, you can limit the output to the first<count>
lines, followed by...
if there are more.These parameters can also be set individually with
--stat-width=<width>
,--stat-name-width=<name-width>
and--stat-count=<count>
. - --numstat
-
Similar to
--stat
, but shows number of added and deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly. For binary files, outputs two-
instead of saying0 0
. - --shortstat
-
Output only the last line of the
--stat
format containing total number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted lines. - --dirstat[=<param1,param2,…>]
-
Output the distribution of relative amount of changes for each sub-directory. The behavior of
--dirstat
can be customized by passing it a comma separated list of parameters. The defaults are controlled by thediff.dirstat
configuration variable (see git-config[1]). The following parameters are available:-
changes
-
Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have been removed from the source, or added to the destination. This ignores the amount of pure code movements within a file. In other words, rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much as other changes. This is the default behavior when no parameter is given.
-
lines
-
Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based diff analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts. (For binary files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary files have no natural concept of lines). This is a more expensive
--dirstat
behavior than thechanges
behavior, but it does count rearranged lines within a file as much as other changes. The resulting output is consistent with what you get from the other--*stat
options. -
files
-
Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files changed. Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat analysis. This is the computationally cheapest
--dirstat
behavior, since it does not have to look at the file contents at all. -
cumulative
-
Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory as well. Note that when using
cumulative
, the sum of the percentages reported may exceed 100%. The default (non-cumulative) behavior can be specified with thenoncumulative
parameter. - <limit>
-
An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by default). Directories contributing less than this percentage of the changes are not shown in the output.
Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring directories with less than 10% of the total amount of changed files, and accumulating child directory counts in the parent directories:
--dirstat=files,10,cumulative
. -
- --summary
-
Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as creations, renames and mode changes.
- --patch-with-stat
-
Synonym for
-p --stat
. - -z
-
When
--raw
,--numstat
,--name-only
or--name-status
has been given, do not munge pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.Without this option, each pathname output will have TAB, LF, double quotes, and backslash characters replaced with
\t
,\n
,\"
, and\\
, respectively, and the pathname will be enclosed in double quotes if any of those replacements occurred. - --name-only
-
Show only names of changed files.
- --name-status
-
Show only names and status of changed files. See the description of the
--diff-filter
option on what the status letters mean. - --submodule[=<format>]
-
Specify how differences in submodules are shown. When
--submodule
or--submodule=log
is given, the log format is used. This format lists the commits in the range like git-submodule[1]summary
does. Omitting the--submodule
option or specifying--submodule=short
, uses the short format. This format just shows the names of the commits at the beginning and end of the range. Can be tweaked via thediff.submodule
configuration variable. - --color[=<when>]
-
Show colored diff.
--color
(i.e. without =<when>) is the same as--color=always
. <when> can be one ofalways
,never
, orauto
. - --no-color
-
Turn off colored diff. It is the same as
--color=never
. - --word-diff[=<mode>]
-
Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words. By default, words are delimited by whitespace; see
--word-diff-regex
below. The <mode> defaults to plain, and must be one of:- color
-
Highlight changed words using only colors. Implies
--color
. - plain
-
Show words as
[-removed-]
and{+added+}
. Makes no attempts to escape the delimiters if they appear in the input, so the output may be ambiguous. - porcelain
-
Use a special line-based format intended for script consumption. Added/removed/unchanged runs are printed in the usual unified diff format, starting with a
+
/-
/` ` character at the beginning of the line and extending to the end of the line. Newlines in the input are represented by a tilde~
on a line of its own. - none
-
Disable word diff again.
Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
- --word-diff-regex=<regex>
-
Use <regex> to decide what a word is, instead of considering runs of non-whitespace to be a word. Also implies
--word-diff
unless it was already enabled.Every non-overlapping match of the <regex> is considered a word. Anything between these matches is considered whitespace and ignored(!) for the purposes of finding differences. You may want to append
|[^[:space:]]
to your regular expression to make sure that it matches all non-whitespace characters. A match that contains a newline is silently truncated(!) at the newline.For example,
--word-diff-regex=.
will treat each character as a word and, correspondingly, show differences character by character.The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration option, see gitattributes[1] or git-config[1]. Giving it explicitly overrides any diff driver or configuration setting. Diff drivers override configuration settings.
- --color-words[=<regex>]
-
Equivalent to
--word-diff=color
plus (if a regex was specified)--word-diff-regex=<regex>
. - --no-renames
-
Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives the default to do so.
- --check
-
Warn if changes introduce whitespace errors. What are considered whitespace errors is controlled by
core.whitespace
configuration. By default, trailing whitespaces (including lines that solely consist of whitespaces) and a space character that is immediately followed by a tab character inside the initial indent of the line are considered whitespace errors. Exits with non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible with --exit-code. - --ws-error-highlight=<kind>
-
Highlight whitespace errors on lines specified by <kind> in the color specified by
color.diff.whitespace
. <kind> is a comma separated list ofold
,new
,context
. When this option is not given, only whitespace errors innew
lines are highlighted. E.g.--ws-error-highlight=new,old
highlights whitespace errors on both deleted and added lines.all
can be used as a short-hand forold,new,context
. - --full-index
-
Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full pre- and post-image blob object names on the "index" line when generating patch format output.
- --binary
-
In addition to
--full-index
, output a binary diff that can be applied withgit-apply
. - --abbrev[=<n>]
-
Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show only a partial prefix. This is independent of the
--full-index
option above, which controls the diff-patch output format. Non default number of digits can be specified with--abbrev=<n>
. - -B[<n>][/<m>]
- --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
-
Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create. This serves two purposes:
It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single insertion of everything new, and the number
m
controls this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 60%).-B/70%
specifies that less than 30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number
n
controls this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%).-B20%
specifies that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible source of a rename to another file. - -M[<n>]
- --find-renames[=<n>]
-
Detect renames. If
n
is specified, it is a threshold on the similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the file’s size). For example,-M90%
means Git should consider a delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t changed. Without a%
sign, the number is to be read as a fraction, with a decimal point before it. I.e.,-M5
becomes 0.5, and is thus the same as-M50%
. Similarly,-M05
is the same as-M5%
. To limit detection to exact renames, use-M100%
. The default similarity index is 50%. - -C[<n>]
- --find-copies[=<n>]
-
Detect copies as well as renames. See also
--find-copies-harder
. Ifn
is specified, it has the same meaning as for-M<n>
. - --find-copies-harder
-
For performance reasons, by default,
-C
option finds copies only if the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset. This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one-C
option has the same effect. - -D
- --irreversible-delete
-
Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not the diff between the preimage and
/dev/null
. The resulting patch is not meant to be applied withpatch
orgit apply
; this is solely for people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after the change. In addition, the output obviously lack enough information to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually, hence the name of the option.When used together with
-B
, omit also the preimage in the deletion part of a delete/create pair. - -l<num>
-
The
-M
and-C
options require O(n^2) processing time where n is the number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified number. - --diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)…[*]]
-
Select only files that are Added (
A
), Copied (C
), Deleted (D
), Modified (M
), Renamed (R
), have their type (i.e. regular file, symlink, submodule, …) changed (T
), are Unmerged (U
), are Unknown (X
), or have had their pairing Broken (B
). Any combination of the filter characters (including none) can be used. When*
(All-or-none) is added to the combination, all paths are selected if there is any file that matches other criteria in the comparison; if there is no file that matches other criteria, nothing is selected. - -S<string>
-
Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the specified string (i.e. addition/deletion) in a file. Intended for the scripter’s use.
It is useful when you’re looking for an exact block of code (like a struct), and want to know the history of that block since it first came into being: use the feature iteratively to feed the interesting block in the preimage back into
-S
, and keep going until you get the very first version of the block. - -G<regex>
-
Look for differences whose patch text contains added/removed lines that match <regex>.
To illustrate the difference between
-S<regex> --pickaxe-regex
and-G<regex>
, consider a commit with the following diff in the same file:+ return !regexec(regexp, two->ptr, 1, ®match, 0); ... - hit = !regexec(regexp, mf2.ptr, 1, ®match, 0);
While
git log -G"regexec\(regexp"
will show this commit,git log -S"regexec\(regexp" --pickaxe-regex
will not (because the number of occurrences of that string did not change).See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore[7] for more information.
- --pickaxe-all
-
When
-S
or-G
finds a change, show all the changes in that changeset, not just the files that contain the change in <string>. - --pickaxe-regex
-
Treat the <string> given to
-S
as an extended POSIX regular expression to match. - -O<orderfile>
-
Output the patch in the order specified in the <orderfile>, which has one shell glob pattern per line. This overrides the
diff.orderFile
configuration variable (see git-config[1]). To canceldiff.orderFile
, use-O/dev/null
. - -R
-
Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk file to tree contents.
- --relative[=<path>]
-
When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be told to exclude changes outside the directory and show pathnames relative to it with this option. When you are not in a subdirectory (e.g. in a bare repository), you can name which subdirectory to make the output relative to by giving a <path> as an argument.
- -a
- --text
-
Treat all files as text.
- --ignore-space-at-eol
-
Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
- -b
- --ignore-space-change
-
Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more whitespace characters to be equivalent.
- -w
- --ignore-all-space
-
Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
- --ignore-blank-lines
-
Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
- --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
-
Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other.
- -W
- --function-context
-
Show whole surrounding functions of changes.
- --exit-code
-
Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1). That is, it exits with 1 if there were differences and 0 means no differences.
- --quiet
-
Disable all output of the program. Implies
--exit-code
. - --ext-diff
-
Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an external diff driver with gitattributes[5], you need to use this option with git-log[1] and friends.
- --no-ext-diff
-
Disallow external diff drivers.
- --textconv
- --no-textconv
-
Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run when comparing binary files. See gitattributes[5] for details. Because textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the resulting diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied. For this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for git-diff[1] and git-log[1], but not for git-format-patch[1] or diff plumbing commands.
- --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
-
Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default. Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any settings of the ignore option in git-config[1] or gitmodules[5]. When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using "all" hides all changes to submodules.
- --src-prefix=<prefix>
-
Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
- --dst-prefix=<prefix>
-
Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
- --no-prefix
-
Do not show any source or destination prefix.
For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also gitdiffcore[7].