Documentation / git-diff-tree.txton commit Rewrite synopsis to clarify the two primary uses of git-checkout. (71bb103)
   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        ie 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
  57behaviour.  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.
  64
  65-s::
  66        By default, "git-diff-tree --stdin" shows differences,
  67        either in machine-readable form (without '-p') or in patch
  68        form (with '-p').  This output can be suppressed.  It is
  69        only useful with '-v' flag.
  70
  71-v::
  72        This flag causes "git-diff-tree --stdin" to also show
  73        the commit message before the differences.
  74
  75--pretty[=(raw|medium|short)]::
  76        This is used to control "pretty printing" format of the
  77        commit message.  Without "=<style>", it defaults to
  78        medium.
  79
  80--no-commit-id::
  81        git-diff-tree outputs a line with the commit ID when
  82        applicable.  This flag suppressed the commit ID output.
  83
  84-c,--cc::
  85        These flags change the way a merge commit is displayed
  86        (which means it is useful only when the command is given
  87        one <tree-ish>, or '--stdin').  It shows the differences
  88        from each of the parents to the merge result
  89        simultaneously, instead of showing pairwise diff between
  90        a parent and the result one at a time, which '-m' option
  91        output does.  '--cc' further compresses the output by
  92        omiting hunks that show differences from only one
  93        parent, or show the same change from all but one parent
  94        for an Octopus merge.  When this optimization makes all
  95        hunks disappear, the commit itself and the commit log
  96        message is not shown, just like any other "empty diff" cases.
  97
  98--always::
  99        Show the commit itself and the commit log message even
 100        if the diff itself is empty.
 101
 102
 103Limiting Output
 104---------------
 105If you're only interested in differences in a subset of files, for
 106example some architecture-specific files, you might do:
 107
 108        git-diff-tree -r <tree-ish> <tree-ish> arch/ia64 include/asm-ia64
 109
 110and it will only show you what changed in those two directories.
 111
 112Or if you are searching for what changed in just `kernel/sched.c`, just do
 113
 114        git-diff-tree -r <tree-ish> <tree-ish> kernel/sched.c
 115
 116and it will ignore all differences to other files.
 117
 118The pattern is always the prefix, and is matched exactly.  There are no
 119wildcards.  Even stricter, it has to match a complete path component.
 120I.e. "foo" does not pick up `foobar.h`.  "foo" does match `foo/bar.h`
 121so it can be used to name subdirectories.
 122
 123An example of normal usage is:
 124
 125  torvalds@ppc970:~/git> git-diff-tree 5319e4......
 126  *100664->100664 blob    ac348b.......->a01513.......      git-fsck-objects.c
 127
 128which tells you that the last commit changed just one file (it's from
 129this one:
 130
 131-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 132commit 3c6f7ca19ad4043e9e72fa94106f352897e651a8
 133tree 5319e4d609cdd282069cc4dce33c1db559539b03
 134parent b4e628ea30d5ab3606119d2ea5caeab141d38df7
 135author Linus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org> Sat Apr 9 12:02:30 2005
 136committer Linus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org> Sat Apr 9 12:02:30 2005
 137
 138Make "git-fsck-objects" print out all the root commits it finds.
 139
 140Once I do the reference tracking, I'll also make it print out all the
 141HEAD commits it finds, which is even more interesting.
 142-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 143
 144in case you care).
 145
 146Output format
 147-------------
 148include::diff-format.txt[]
 149
 150
 151Author
 152------
 153Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 154
 155Documentation
 156--------------
 157Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 158
 159GIT
 160---
 161Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite
 162