Documentation / diff-options.txton commit clean: require -f to do damage by default (562ca19)
   1-p::
   2        Generate patch (see section on generating patches)
   3
   4-u::
   5        Synonym for "-p".
   6
   7-U<n>::
   8        Shorthand for "--unified=<n>".
   9
  10--unified=<n>::
  11        Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of
  12        the usual three. Implies "-p".
  13
  14--raw::
  15        Generate the raw format.
  16
  17--patch-with-raw::
  18        Synonym for "-p --raw".
  19
  20--stat[=width[,name-width]]::
  21        Generate a diffstat.  You can override the default
  22        output width for 80-column terminal by "--stat=width".
  23        The width of the filename part can be controlled by
  24        giving another width to it separated by a comma.
  25
  26--numstat::
  27        Similar to \--stat, but shows number of added and
  28        deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without
  29        abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly.  For
  30        binary files, outputs two `-` instead of saying
  31        `0 0`.
  32
  33--shortstat::
  34        Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
  35        number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
  36        lines.
  37
  38--summary::
  39        Output a condensed summary of extended header information
  40        such as creations, renames and mode changes.
  41
  42--patch-with-stat::
  43        Synonym for "-p --stat".
  44
  45-z::
  46        NUL-line termination on output.  This affects the --raw
  47        output field terminator.  Also output from commands such
  48        as "git-log" will be delimited with NUL between commits.
  49
  50--name-only::
  51        Show only names of changed files.
  52
  53--name-status::
  54        Show only names and status of changed files.
  55
  56--color::
  57        Show colored diff.
  58
  59--no-color::
  60        Turn off colored diff, even when the configuration file
  61        gives the default to color output.
  62
  63--color-words::
  64        Show colored word diff, i.e. color words which have changed.
  65
  66--no-renames::
  67        Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration
  68        file gives the default to do so.
  69
  70--check::
  71        Warn if changes introduce trailing whitespace
  72        or an indent that uses a space before a tab.
  73
  74--full-index::
  75        Instead of the first handful characters, show full
  76        object name of pre- and post-image blob on the "index"
  77        line when generating a patch format output.
  78
  79--binary::
  80        In addition to --full-index, output "binary diff" that
  81        can be applied with "git apply".
  82
  83--abbrev[=<n>]::
  84        Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
  85        name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
  86        lines, show only handful hexdigits prefix.  This is
  87        independent of --full-index option above, which controls
  88        the diff-patch output format.  Non default number of
  89        digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
  90
  91-B::
  92        Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
  93
  94-M::
  95        Detect renames.
  96
  97-C::
  98        Detect copies as well as renames.  See also `--find-copies-harder`.
  99
 100--diff-filter=[ACDMRTUXB*]::
 101        Select only files that are Added (`A`), Copied (`C`),
 102        Deleted (`D`), Modified (`M`), Renamed (`R`), have their
 103        type (mode) changed (`T`), are Unmerged (`U`), are
 104        Unknown (`X`), or have had their pairing Broken (`B`).
 105        Any combination of the filter characters may be used.
 106        When `*` (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all
 107        paths are selected if there is any file that matches
 108        other criteria in the comparison; if there is no file
 109        that matches other criteria, nothing is selected.
 110
 111--find-copies-harder::
 112        For performance reasons, by default, `-C` option finds copies only
 113        if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
 114        changeset.  This flag makes the command
 115        inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of
 116        copy.  This is a very expensive operation for large
 117        projects, so use it with caution.  Giving more than one
 118        `-C` option has the same effect.
 119
 120-l<num>::
 121        -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n
 122        is the number of potential rename/copy targets.  This
 123        option prevents rename/copy detection from running if
 124        the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified
 125        number.
 126
 127-S<string>::
 128        Look for differences that contain the change in <string>.
 129
 130--pickaxe-all::
 131        When -S finds a change, show all the changes in that
 132        changeset, not just the files that contain the change
 133        in <string>.
 134
 135--pickaxe-regex::
 136        Make the <string> not a plain string but an extended POSIX
 137        regex to match.
 138
 139-O<orderfile>::
 140        Output the patch in the order specified in the
 141        <orderfile>, which has one shell glob pattern per line.
 142
 143-R::
 144        Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
 145        on-disk file to tree contents.
 146
 147--text::
 148        Treat all files as text.
 149
 150-a::
 151        Shorthand for "--text".
 152
 153--ignore-space-at-eol::
 154        Ignore changes in white spaces at EOL.
 155
 156--ignore-space-change::
 157        Ignore changes in amount of white space.  This ignores white
 158        space at line end, and consider all other sequences of one or
 159        more white space characters to be equivalent.
 160
 161-b::
 162        Shorthand for "--ignore-space-change".
 163
 164--ignore-all-space::
 165        Ignore white space when comparing lines.  This ignores
 166        difference even if one line has white space where the other
 167        line has none.
 168
 169-w::
 170        Shorthand for "--ignore-all-space".
 171
 172--exit-code::
 173        Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1).
 174        That is, it exits with 1 if there were differences and
 175        0 means no differences.
 176
 177--quiet::
 178        Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
 179
 180--ext-diff::
 181        Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
 182        external diff driver with gitlink:gitattributes[5], you need
 183        to use this option with gitlink:git-log[1] and friends.
 184
 185--no-ext-diff::
 186        Disallow external diff drivers.
 187
 188For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
 189link:diffcore.html[diffcore documentation].