git-diff-tree(1)

NAME#

git-diff-tree - Compares the content and mode of blobs found via two tree objects

SYNOPSIS#

git diff-tree\n [--stdin] [-m] [-s] [-v] [--no-commit-id] [--pretty]
\n
              [-t] [-r] [-c | --cc] [--combined-all-paths] [--root] [--merge-base]
\n
              [<common-diff-options>] <tree-ish> [<tree-ish>] [<path>...]

DESCRIPTION#

Compare the content and mode of blobs found via two tree objects.

If there is only one <tree-ish> given, the commit is compared with its parents (see --stdin below).

Note that git diff-tree can use the tree encapsulated in a commit object.

OPTIONS#

-p, -u, --patch

-s, --no-patch

-U<n>, --unified=<n>

--output=<file>

--output-indicator-new=<char>, --output-indicator-old=<char>, --output-indicator-context=<char>

--raw

--patch-with-raw

--indent-heuristic

--no-indent-heuristic

--minimal

--patience

--histogram

--anchored=<text>

This option may be specified more than once.

If a line exists in both the source and destination, exists only once, and starts with this text, this algorithm attempts to prevent it from appearing as a deletion or addition in the output. It uses the "patience diff" algorithm internally.

--diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}

default, myers

minimal

patience

histogram

For instance, if you configured the 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>]]]

These parameters can also be set individually with --stat-width=<width>, --stat-name-width=<name-width> and --stat-count=<count>.

--compact-summary

--numstat

--shortstat

-X[<param1,param2,...>], --dirstat[=<param1,param2,...>]

changes

lines

files

cumulative

<limit>

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.

--cumulative

--dirstat-by-file[=<param1,param2>...]

--summary

--patch-with-stat

-z

Without this option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).

--name-only

--name-status

--submodule[=<format>]

--color[=<when>]

--no-color

--color-moved[=<mode>]

no

default

plain

blocks

zebra

dimmed-zebra

--no-color-moved

--color-moved-ws=<modes>

no

ignore-space-at-eol

ignore-space-change

ignore-all-space

allow-indentation-change

--no-color-moved-ws

--word-diff[=<mode>]

color

plain

porcelain

none

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>

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(5) or git-config(1). Giving it explicitly overrides any diff driver or configuration setting. Diff drivers override configuration settings.

--color-words[=<regex>]

--no-renames

--[no-]rename-empty

--check

--ws-error-highlight=<kind>

--full-index

--binary

--abbrev[=<n>]

-B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]

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>]

-C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]

--find-copies-harder

-D, --irreversible-delete

When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion part of a delete/create pair.

-l<num>

--diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]

Also, these upper-case letters can be downcased to exclude. E.g. --diff-filter=ad excludes added and deleted paths.

Note that not all diffs can feature all types. For instance, copied and renamed entries cannot appear if detection for those types is disabled.

-S<string>

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.

Binary files are searched as well.

-G<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 frotz(nitfol, two->ptr, 1, 0);
...
-    hit = frotz(nitfol, mf2.ptr, 1, 0);

While git log -G"frotz\(nitfol" will show this commit, git log -S"frotz\(nitfol" --pickaxe-regex will not (because the number of occurrences of that string did not change).

Unless --text is supplied patches of binary files without a textconv filter will be ignored.

See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more information.

--find-object=<object-id>

The object can be a blob or a submodule commit. It implies the -t option in git-log to also find trees.

--pickaxe-all

--pickaxe-regex

-O<orderfile>

The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in <orderfile>. All files with pathnames that match the first pattern are output first, all files with pathnames that match the second pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on. All files with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output last, as if there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of the file. If multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match the same pattern but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each other is the normal order.

<orderfile> is parsed as follows:

Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern "foo*bar" matches "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not "foobarx".

--skip-to=<file>, --rotate-to=<file>

-R

--relative[=<path>], --no-relative

-a, --text

--ignore-cr-at-eol

--ignore-space-at-eol

-b, --ignore-space-change

-w, --ignore-all-space

--ignore-blank-lines

-I<regex>, --ignore-matching-lines=<regex>

--inter-hunk-context=<lines>

-W, --function-context

--exit-code

--quiet

--ext-diff

--no-ext-diff

--textconv, --no-textconv

--ignore-submodules[=<when>]

--src-prefix=<prefix>

--dst-prefix=<prefix>

--no-prefix

--default-prefix

--line-prefix=<prefix>

--ita-invisible-in-index

For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also gitdiffcore(7).

<tree-ish>

<path>...

-r

-t

--root

--merge-base

--stdin

When two trees are given, it compares the first tree with the second. When a single commit is given, it compares the commit with its parents. The remaining commits, when given, are used as if they are parents of the first commit.

When comparing two trees, the ID of both trees (separated by a space and terminated by a newline) is printed before the difference. When comparing commits, the ID of the first (or only) commit, followed by a newline, is printed.

The following flags further affect the behavior when comparing commits (but not trees).

-m

-s

-v

--pretty[=<format>], --format=<format>

See the "PRETTY FORMATS" section for some additional details for each format. When =<format> part is omitted, it defaults to medium.

Note: you can specify the default pretty format in the repository configuration (see git-config(1)).

--abbrev-commit

This should make "--pretty=oneline" a whole lot more readable for people using 80-column terminals.

--no-abbrev-commit

--oneline

--encoding=<encoding>

--expand-tabs=<n>, --expand-tabs, --no-expand-tabs

By default, tabs are expanded in pretty formats that indent the log message by 4 spaces (i.e. medium, which is the default, full, and fuller).

--notes[=<ref>]

By default, the notes shown are from the notes refs listed in the core.notesRef and notes.displayRef variables (or corresponding environment overrides). See git-config(1) for more details.

With an optional <ref> argument, use the ref to find the notes to display. The ref can specify the full refname when it begins with refs/notes/; when it begins with notes/, refs/ and otherwise refs/notes/ is prefixed to form the full name of the ref.

Multiple --notes options can be combined to control which notes are being displayed. Examples: "--notes=foo" will show only notes from "refs/notes/foo"; "--notes=foo --notes" will show both notes from "refs/notes/foo" and from the default notes ref(s).

--no-notes

--show-notes-by-default

--show-notes[=<ref>], --[no-]standard-notes

--show-signature

--no-commit-id

-c

--cc

--combined-all-paths

--always

PRETTY FORMATS#

If the commit is a merge, and if the pretty-format is not oneline, email or raw, an additional line is inserted before the Author: line. This line begins with "Merge: " and the hashes of ancestral commits are printed, separated by spaces. Note that the listed commits may not necessarily be the list of the direct parent commits if you have limited your view of history: for example, if you are only interested in changes related to a certain directory or file.

There are several built-in formats, and you can define additional formats by setting a pretty.<name> config option to either another format name, or a format: string, as described below (see git-config(1)). Here are the details of the built-in formats:

<hash> <title-line>

This is designed to be as compact as possible.

commit <hash>
Author: <author>

<title-line>

commit <hash>
Author: <author>
Date:   <author-date>

<title-line>

<full-commit-message>

commit <hash>
Author: <author>
Commit: <committer>

<title-line>

<full-commit-message>

commit <hash>
Author:     <author>
AuthorDate: <author-date>
Commit:     <committer>
CommitDate: <committer-date>

<title-line>

<full-commit-message>

<abbrev-hash> (<title-line>, <short-author-date>)

This format is used to refer to another commit in a commit message and is the same as --pretty='format:%C(auto)%h (%s, %ad)'. By default, the date is formatted with --date=short unless another --date option is explicitly specified. As with any format: with format placeholders, its output is not affected by other options like --decorate and --walk-reflogs.

From <hash> <date>
From: <author>
Date: <author-date>
Subject: [PATCH] <title-line>

<full-commit-message>

Like email, but lines in the commit message starting with "From " (preceded by zero or more ">") are quoted with ">" so they aren’t confused as starting a new commit.

The raw format shows the entire commit exactly as stored in the commit object. Notably, the hashes are displayed in full, regardless of whether --abbrev or --no-abbrev are used, and parents information show the true parent commits, without taking grafts or history simplification into account. Note that this format affects the way commits are displayed, but not the way the diff is shown e.g. with git log --raw. To get full object names in a raw diff format, use --no-abbrev.

The format:<format-string> format allows you to specify which information you want to show. It works a little bit like printf format, with the notable exception that you get a newline with %n instead of \n.

E.g, format:"The author of %h was %an, %ar%nThe title was >>%s<<%n" would show something like this:

The author of fe6e0ee was Junio C Hamano, 23 hours ago
The title was >>t4119: test autocomputing -p<n> for traditional diff input.<<

The placeholders are:

%n

%%

%x00

%Cred

%Cgreen

%Cblue

%Creset

%C(...)

%m

%w([<w>[,<i1>[,<i2>]]])

%<( <N> [,trunc|ltrunc|mtrunc])

%<|( <M> )

%>( <N> ), %>|( <M> )

%>>( <N> ), %>>|( <M> )

%><( <N> ), %><|( <M> )

%H

%h

%T

%t

%P

%p

%an

%aN

%ae

%aE

%al

%aL

%ad

%aD

%ar

%at

%ai

%aI

%as

%ah

%cn

%cN

%ce

%cE

%cl

%cL

%cd

%cD

%cr

%ct

%ci

%cI

%cs

%ch

%d

%D

%(decorate[:<options>])

For example, to produce decorations with no wrapping or tag annotations, and spaces as separators:

%(decorate:prefix=,suffix=,tag=,separator= )

%(describe[:<options>])

%S

%e

%s

%f

%b

%B

%N

%GG

%G?

%GS

%GK

%GF

%GP

%GT

%gD

%gd

%gn

%gN

%ge

%gE

%gs

%(trailers[:<options>])

Some placeholders may depend on other options given to the revision traversal engine. For example, the %g* reflog options will insert an empty string unless we are traversing reflog entries (e.g., by git log -g). The %d and %D placeholders will use the "short" decoration format if --decorate was not already provided on the command line.

The boolean options accept an optional value [=<bool-value>]. The values true, false, on, off etc. are all accepted. See the "boolean" sub-section in "EXAMPLES" in git-config(1). If a boolean option is given with no value, it’s enabled.

If you add a + (plus sign) after % of a placeholder, a line-feed is inserted immediately before the expansion if and only if the placeholder expands to a non-empty string.

If you add a - (minus sign) after % of a placeholder, all consecutive line-feeds immediately preceding the expansion are deleted if and only if the placeholder expands to an empty string.

If you add a ` ` (space) after % of a placeholder, a space is inserted immediately before the expansion if and only if the placeholder expands to a non-empty string.

The tformat: format works exactly like format:, except that it provides "terminator" semantics instead of "separator" semantics. In other words, each commit has the message terminator character (usually a newline) appended, rather than a separator placed between entries. This means that the final entry of a single-line format will be properly terminated with a new line, just as the "oneline" format does. For example:

$ git log -2 --pretty=format:%h 4da45bef \
\n
  | perl -pe '$_ .= " -- NO NEWLINE\n" unless /\n/'
4da45be
7134973 -- NO NEWLINE
$ git log -2 --pretty=tformat:%h 4da45bef \
\n
  | perl -pe '$_ .= " -- NO NEWLINE\n" unless /\n/'
4da45be
7134973

In addition, any unrecognized string that has a % in it is interpreted as if it has tformat: in front of it. For example, these two are equivalent:

$ git log -2 --pretty=tformat:%h 4da45bef
$ git log -2 --pretty=%h 4da45bef

RAW OUTPUT FORMAT#

The raw output format from "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git diff --raw" are very similar.

These commands all compare two sets of things; what is compared differs:

git-diff-index <tree-ish>

git-diff-index --cached <tree-ish>

git-diff-tree [-r] <tree-ish-1> <tree-ish-2> [<pattern>...]

git-diff-files [<pattern>...]

The "git-diff-tree" command begins its output by printing the hash of what is being compared. After that, all the commands print one output line per changed file.

An output line is formatted this way:

in-place edit  :100644 100644 bcd1234 0123456 M file0
copy-edit      :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 C68 file1 file2
rename-edit    :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 R86 file1 file3
create         :000000 100644 0000000 1234567 A file4
delete         :100644 000000 1234567 0000000 D file5
unmerged       :000000 000000 0000000 0000000 U file6

That is, from the left to the right:

Possible status letters are:

Status letters C and R are always followed by a score (denoting the percentage of similarity between the source and target of the move or copy). Status letter M may be followed by a score (denoting the percentage of dissimilarity) for file rewrites.

The sha1 for "dst" is shown as all 0’s if a file on the filesystem is out of sync with the index.

Example:

:100644 100644 5be4a4a 0000000 M file.c

Without the -z option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)). Using -z the filename is output verbatim and the line is terminated by a NUL byte.

DIFF FORMAT FOR MERGES#

"git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff --raw" can take -c or --cc option to generate diff output also for merge commits. The output differs from the format described above in the following way:

For -c and --cc, only the destination or final path is shown even if the file was renamed on any side of history. With --combined-all-paths, the name of the path in each parent is shown followed by the name of the path in the merge commit.

Examples for -c and --cc without --combined-all-paths:

::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM       desc.c
::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM       bar.sh
::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR       phooey.c

Examples when --combined-all-paths added to either -c or --cc:

::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM       desc.c  desc.c  desc.c
::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM       foo.sh  bar.sh  bar.sh
::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR       fooey.c fuey.c  phooey.c

Note that combined diff lists only files which were modified from all parents.

GENERATING PATCH TEXT WITH -P#

Running git-diff(1), git-log(1), git-show(1), git-diff-index(1), git-diff-tree(1), or git-diff-files(1) with the -p option produces patch text. You can customize the creation of patch text via the GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS environment variables (see git(1)), and the diff attribute (see gitattributes(5)).

What the -p option produces is slightly different from the traditional diff format:

diff --git a/file1 b/file2

The a/ and b/ filenames are the same unless rename/copy is involved. Especially, even for a creation or a deletion, /dev/null is not used in place of the a/ or b/ filenames.

When a rename/copy is involved, file1 and file2 show the name of the source file of the rename/copy and the name of the file that the rename/copy produces, respectively.

old mode <mode>
new mode <mode>
deleted file mode <mode>
new file mode <mode>
copy from <path>
copy to <path>
rename from <path>
rename to <path>
similarity index <number>
dissimilarity index <number>
index <hash>..<hash> <mode>

File modes are printed as 6-digit octal numbers including the file type and file permission bits.

Path names in extended headers do not include the a/ and b/ prefixes.

The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines, and the dissimilarity index is the percentage of changed lines. It is a rounded down integer, followed by a percent sign. The similarity index value of 100% is thus reserved for two equal files, while 100% dissimilarity means that no line from the old file made it into the new one.

The index line includes the blob object names before and after the change. The <mode> is included if the file mode does not change; otherwise, separate lines indicate the old and the new mode.

diff --git a/a b/b
rename from a
rename to b
diff --git a/b b/a
rename from b
rename to a

COMBINED DIFF FORMAT#

Any diff-generating command can take the -c or --cc option to produce a combined diff when showing a merge. This is the default format when showing merges with git-diff(1) or git-show(1). Note also that you can give suitable --diff-merges option to any of these commands to force generation of diffs in a specific format.

A "combined diff" format looks like this:

diff --combined describe.c
index fabadb8,cc95eb0..4866510
--- a/describe.c
+++ b/describe.c
@@@ -98,20 -98,12 +98,20 @@@
\n
        return (a_date > b_date) ? -1 : (a_date == b_date) ? 0 : 1;
\n
  }
- static void describe(char *arg)
\n
 -static void describe(struct commit *cmit, int last_one)
++static void describe(char *arg, int last_one)
\n
  {
\n
 +      unsigned char sha1[20];
\n
 +      struct commit *cmit;
\n
        struct commit_list *list;
\n
        static int initialized = 0;
\n
        struct commit_name *n;
\n
 +      if (get_sha1(arg, sha1) < 0)
\n
 +              usage(describe_usage);
\n
 +      cmit = lookup_commit_reference(sha1);
\n
 +      if (!cmit)
\n
 +              usage(describe_usage);
\n
 +
\n
        if (!initialized) {
\n
                initialized = 1;
\n
                for_each_ref(get_name);

diff --combined file

or like this (when the --cc option is used):

diff --cc file

index <hash>,<hash>..<hash>
mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode>
new file mode <mode>
deleted file mode <mode>,<mode>

The mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode> line appears only if at least one of the <mode> is different from the rest. Extended headers with information about detected content movement (renames and copying detection) are designed to work with the diff of two <tree-ish> and are not used by combined diff format.

--- a/file
+++ b/file

Similar to the two-line header for the traditional unified diff format, /dev/null is used to signal created or deleted files.

However, if the --combined-all-paths option is provided, instead of a two-line from-file/to-file, you get an N+1 line from-file/to-file header, where N is the number of parents in the merge commit:

--- a/file
--- a/file
--- a/file
+++ b/file

This extended format can be useful if rename or copy detection is active, to allow you to see the original name of the file in different parents.

@@@ <from-file-range> <from-file-range> <to-file-range> @@@

There are (number of parents + 1) @ characters in the chunk header for combined diff format.

Unlike the traditional unified diff format, which shows two files A and B with a single column that has - (minus — appears in A but removed in B), + (plus — missing in A but added to B), or " " (space — unchanged) prefix, this format compares two or more files file1, file2,... with one file X, and shows how X differs from each of fileN. One column for each of fileN is prepended to the output line to note how X’s line is different from it.

A - character in the column N means that the line appears in fileN but it does not appear in the result. A + character in the column N means that the line appears in the result, and fileN does not have that line (in other words, the line was added, from the point of view of that parent).

In the above example output, the function signature was changed from both files (hence two - removals from both file1 and file2, plus ++ to mean one line that was added does not appear in either file1 or file2). Also, eight other lines are the same from file1 but do not appear in file2 (hence prefixed with +).

When shown by git diff-tree -c, it compares the parents of a merge commit with the merge result (i.e. file1..fileN are the parents). When shown by git diff-files -c, it compares the two unresolved merge parents with the working tree file (i.e. file1 is stage 2 aka "our version", file2 is stage 3 aka "their version").

OTHER DIFF FORMATS#

The --summary option describes newly added, deleted, renamed and copied files. The --stat option adds diffstat(1) graph to the output. These options can be combined with other options, such as -p, and are meant for human consumption.

When showing a change that involves a rename or a copy, --stat output formats the pathnames compactly by combining common prefix and suffix of the pathnames. For example, a change that moves arch/i386/Makefile to arch/x86/Makefile while modifying 4 lines will be shown like this:

arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile    |   4 +--

The --numstat option gives the diffstat(1) information but is designed for easier machine consumption. An entry in --numstat output looks like this:

1       2       README
3       1       arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile

That is, from left to right:

When -z output option is in effect, the output is formatted this way:

1       2       README NUL
3       1       NUL arch/i386/Makefile NUL arch/x86/Makefile NUL

That is:

The extra NUL before the preimage path in renamed case is to allow scripts that read the output to tell if the current record being read is a single-path record or a rename/copy record without reading ahead. After reading added and deleted lines, reading up to NUL would yield the pathname, but if that is NUL, the record will show two paths.

GIT#

Part of the git(1) suite