Documentation / diff-config.txton commit Merge branch 'jk/diff-compact-heuristic' (0018da1)
   1diff.autoRefreshIndex::
   2        When using 'git diff' to compare with work tree
   3        files, do not consider stat-only change as changed.
   4        Instead, silently run `git update-index --refresh` to
   5        update the cached stat information for paths whose
   6        contents in the work tree match the contents in the
   7        index.  This option defaults to true.  Note that this
   8        affects only 'git diff' Porcelain, and not lower level
   9        'diff' commands such as 'git diff-files'.
  10
  11diff.dirstat::
  12        A comma separated list of `--dirstat` parameters specifying the
  13        default behavior of the `--dirstat` option to linkgit:git-diff[1]`
  14        and friends. The defaults can be overridden on the command line
  15        (using `--dirstat=<param1,param2,...>`). The fallback defaults
  16        (when not changed by `diff.dirstat`) are `changes,noncumulative,3`.
  17        The following parameters are available:
  18+
  19--
  20`changes`;;
  21        Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have been
  22        removed from the source, or added to the destination. This ignores
  23        the amount of pure code movements within a file.  In other words,
  24        rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much as other changes.
  25        This is the default behavior when no parameter is given.
  26`lines`;;
  27        Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based diff
  28        analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts. (For binary
  29        files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary files have no
  30        natural concept of lines). This is a more expensive `--dirstat`
  31        behavior than the `changes` behavior, but it does count rearranged
  32        lines within a file as much as other changes. The resulting output
  33        is consistent with what you get from the other `--*stat` options.
  34`files`;;
  35        Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files changed.
  36        Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat analysis. This is
  37        the computationally cheapest `--dirstat` behavior, since it does
  38        not have to look at the file contents at all.
  39`cumulative`;;
  40        Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory as well.
  41        Note that when using `cumulative`, the sum of the percentages
  42        reported may exceed 100%. The default (non-cumulative) behavior can
  43        be specified with the `noncumulative` parameter.
  44<limit>;;
  45        An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by default).
  46        Directories contributing less than this percentage of the changes
  47        are not shown in the output.
  48--
  49+
  50Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring
  51directories with less than 10% of the total amount of changed files,
  52and accumulating child directory counts in the parent directories:
  53`files,10,cumulative`.
  54
  55diff.statGraphWidth::
  56        Limit the width of the graph part in --stat output. If set, applies
  57        to all commands generating --stat output except format-patch.
  58
  59diff.context::
  60        Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the default
  61        of 3. This value is overridden by the -U option.
  62
  63diff.external::
  64        If this config variable is set, diff generation is not
  65        performed using the internal diff machinery, but using the
  66        given command.  Can be overridden with the `GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF'
  67        environment variable.  The command is called with parameters
  68        as described under "git Diffs" in linkgit:git[1].  Note: if
  69        you want to use an external diff program only on a subset of
  70        your files, you might want to use linkgit:gitattributes[5] instead.
  71
  72diff.ignoreSubmodules::
  73        Sets the default value of --ignore-submodules. Note that this
  74        affects only 'git diff' Porcelain, and not lower level 'diff'
  75        commands such as 'git diff-files'. 'git checkout' also honors
  76        this setting when reporting uncommitted changes. Setting it to
  77        'all' disables the submodule summary normally shown by 'git commit'
  78        and 'git status' when 'status.submoduleSummary' is set unless it is
  79        overridden by using the --ignore-submodules command-line option.
  80        The 'git submodule' commands are not affected by this setting.
  81
  82diff.mnemonicPrefix::
  83        If set, 'git diff' uses a prefix pair that is different from the
  84        standard "a/" and "b/" depending on what is being compared.  When
  85        this configuration is in effect, reverse diff output also swaps
  86        the order of the prefixes:
  87`git diff`;;
  88        compares the (i)ndex and the (w)ork tree;
  89`git diff HEAD`;;
  90         compares a (c)ommit and the (w)ork tree;
  91`git diff --cached`;;
  92        compares a (c)ommit and the (i)ndex;
  93`git diff HEAD:file1 file2`;;
  94        compares an (o)bject and a (w)ork tree entity;
  95`git diff --no-index a b`;;
  96        compares two non-git things (1) and (2).
  97
  98diff.noprefix::
  99        If set, 'git diff' does not show any source or destination prefix.
 100
 101diff.orderFile::
 102        File indicating how to order files within a diff, using
 103        one shell glob pattern per line.
 104        Can be overridden by the '-O' option to linkgit:git-diff[1].
 105
 106diff.renameLimit::
 107        The number of files to consider when performing the copy/rename
 108        detection; equivalent to the 'git diff' option '-l'.
 109
 110diff.renames::
 111        Whether and how Git detects renames.  If set to "false",
 112        rename detection is disabled. If set to "true", basic rename
 113        detection is enabled.  If set to "copies" or "copy", Git will
 114        detect copies, as well.  Defaults to true.  Note that this
 115        affects only 'git diff' Porcelain like linkgit:git-diff[1] and
 116        linkgit:git-log[1], and not lower level commands such as
 117        linkgit:git-diff-files[1].
 118
 119diff.suppressBlankEmpty::
 120        A boolean to inhibit the standard behavior of printing a space
 121        before each empty output line. Defaults to false.
 122
 123diff.submodule::
 124        Specify the format in which differences in submodules are
 125        shown.  The "log" format lists the commits in the range like
 126        linkgit:git-submodule[1] `summary` does.  The "short" format
 127        format just shows the names of the commits at the beginning
 128        and end of the range.  Defaults to short.
 129
 130diff.wordRegex::
 131        A POSIX Extended Regular Expression used to determine what is a "word"
 132        when performing word-by-word difference calculations.  Character
 133        sequences that match the regular expression are "words", all other
 134        characters are *ignorable* whitespace.
 135
 136diff.<driver>.command::
 137        The custom diff driver command.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5]
 138        for details.
 139
 140diff.<driver>.xfuncname::
 141        The regular expression that the diff driver should use to
 142        recognize the hunk header.  A built-in pattern may also be used.
 143        See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 144
 145diff.<driver>.binary::
 146        Set this option to true to make the diff driver treat files as
 147        binary.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 148
 149diff.<driver>.textconv::
 150        The command that the diff driver should call to generate the
 151        text-converted version of a file.  The result of the
 152        conversion is used to generate a human-readable diff.  See
 153        linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 154
 155diff.<driver>.wordRegex::
 156        The regular expression that the diff driver should use to
 157        split words in a line.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for
 158        details.
 159
 160diff.<driver>.cachetextconv::
 161        Set this option to true to make the diff driver cache the text
 162        conversion outputs.  See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
 163
 164diff.tool::
 165        Controls which diff tool is used by linkgit:git-difftool[1].
 166        This variable overrides the value configured in `merge.tool`.
 167        The list below shows the valid built-in values.
 168        Any other value is treated as a custom diff tool and requires
 169        that a corresponding difftool.<tool>.cmd variable is defined.
 170
 171include::mergetools-diff.txt[]
 172
 173diff.algorithm::
 174        Choose a diff algorithm.  The variants are as follows:
 175+
 176--
 177`default`, `myers`;;
 178        The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the default.
 179`minimal`;;
 180        Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
 181        produced.
 182`patience`;;
 183        Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
 184`histogram`;;
 185        This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
 186        low-occurrence common elements".
 187--
 188+