Documentation / git-diff-tree.txton commit git-branch -D: make it work even when on a yet-to-be-born branch (67affd5)
   1git-diff-tree(1)
   2================
   3
   4NAME
   5----
   6git-diff-tree - Compares the content and mode of blobs found via two tree objects
   7
   8
   9SYNOPSIS
  10--------
  11[verse]
  12'git-diff-tree' [--stdin] [-m] [-s] [-v] [--no-commit-id] [--pretty]
  13              [-t] [-r] [-c | --cc] [--root] [<common diff options>]
  14              <tree-ish> [<tree-ish>] [<path>...]
  15
  16DESCRIPTION
  17-----------
  18Compares the content and mode of the blobs found via two tree objects.
  19
  20If there is only one <tree-ish> given, the commit is compared with its parents
  21(see --stdin below).
  22
  23Note that "git-diff-tree" can use the tree encapsulated in a commit object.
  24
  25OPTIONS
  26-------
  27include::diff-options.txt[]
  28
  29<tree-ish>::
  30        The id of a tree object.
  31
  32<path>...::
  33        If provided, the results are limited to a subset of files
  34        matching one of these prefix strings.
  35        i.e., file matches `/^<pattern1>|<pattern2>|.../`
  36        Note that this parameter does not provide any wildcard or regexp
  37        features.
  38
  39-r::
  40        recurse into sub-trees
  41
  42-t::
  43        show tree entry itself as well as subtrees.  Implies -r.
  44
  45--root::
  46        When '--root' is specified the initial commit will be showed as a big
  47        creation event. This is equivalent to a diff against the NULL tree.
  48
  49--stdin::
  50        When '--stdin' is specified, the command does not take
  51        <tree-ish> arguments from the command line.  Instead, it
  52        reads either one <commit> or a pair of <tree-ish>
  53        separated with a single space from its standard input.
  54+
  55When a single commit is given on one line of such input, it compares
  56the commit with its parents.  The following flags further affects its
  57behavior.  This does not apply to the case where two <tree-ish>
  58separated with a single space are given.
  59
  60-m::
  61        By default, "git-diff-tree --stdin" does not show
  62        differences for merge commits.  With this flag, it shows
  63        differences to that commit from all of its parents. See
  64        also '-c'.
  65
  66-s::
  67        By default, "git-diff-tree --stdin" shows differences,
  68        either in machine-readable form (without '-p') or in patch
  69        form (with '-p').  This output can be suppressed.  It is
  70        only useful with '-v' flag.
  71
  72-v::
  73        This flag causes "git-diff-tree --stdin" to also show
  74        the commit message before the differences.
  75
  76include::pretty-formats.txt[]
  77
  78--no-commit-id::
  79        git-diff-tree outputs a line with the commit ID when
  80        applicable.  This flag suppressed the commit ID output.
  81
  82-c::
  83        This flag changes the way a merge commit is displayed
  84        (which means it is useful only when the command is given
  85        one <tree-ish>, or '--stdin').  It shows the differences
  86        from each of the parents to the merge result simultaneously
  87        instead of showing pairwise diff between a parent and the
  88        result one at a time (which is what the '-m' option does).
  89        Furthermore, it lists only files which were modified
  90        from all parents.
  91
  92--cc::
  93        This flag changes the way a merge commit patch is displayed,
  94        in a similar way to the '-c' option. It implies the '-c'
  95        and '-p' options and further compresses the patch output
  96        by omitting hunks that show differences from only one
  97        parent, or show the same change from all but one parent
  98        for an Octopus merge.  When this optimization makes all
  99        hunks disappear, the commit itself and the commit log
 100        message is not shown, just like in any other "empty diff" case.
 101
 102--always::
 103        Show the commit itself and the commit log message even
 104        if the diff itself is empty.
 105
 106
 107Limiting Output
 108---------------
 109If you're only interested in differences in a subset of files, for
 110example some architecture-specific files, you might do:
 111
 112        git-diff-tree -r <tree-ish> <tree-ish> arch/ia64 include/asm-ia64
 113
 114and it will only show you what changed in those two directories.
 115
 116Or if you are searching for what changed in just `kernel/sched.c`, just do
 117
 118        git-diff-tree -r <tree-ish> <tree-ish> kernel/sched.c
 119
 120and it will ignore all differences to other files.
 121
 122The pattern is always the prefix, and is matched exactly.  There are no
 123wildcards.  Even stricter, it has to match a complete path component.
 124I.e. "foo" does not pick up `foobar.h`.  "foo" does match `foo/bar.h`
 125so it can be used to name subdirectories.
 126
 127An example of normal usage is:
 128
 129  torvalds@ppc970:~/git> git-diff-tree 5319e4......
 130  *100664->100664 blob    ac348b.......->a01513.......      git-fsck-objects.c
 131
 132which tells you that the last commit changed just one file (it's from
 133this one:
 134
 135-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 136commit 3c6f7ca19ad4043e9e72fa94106f352897e651a8
 137tree 5319e4d609cdd282069cc4dce33c1db559539b03
 138parent b4e628ea30d5ab3606119d2ea5caeab141d38df7
 139author Linus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org> Sat Apr 9 12:02:30 2005
 140committer Linus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org> Sat Apr 9 12:02:30 2005
 141
 142Make "git-fsck-objects" print out all the root commits it finds.
 143
 144Once I do the reference tracking, I'll also make it print out all the
 145HEAD commits it finds, which is even more interesting.
 146-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 147
 148in case you care).
 149
 150Output format
 151-------------
 152include::diff-format.txt[]
 153
 154
 155Author
 156------
 157Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 158
 159Documentation
 160--------------
 161Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 162
 163GIT
 164---
 165Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite
 166