Documentation / diff-options.txton commit deprecate the new loose object header format (726f852)
   1-p::
   2        Generate patch (see section on generating patches)
   3
   4-u::
   5        Synonym for "-p".
   6
   7--raw::
   8        Generate the raw format.
   9
  10--patch-with-raw::
  11        Synonym for "-p --raw".
  12
  13--stat[=width[,name-width]]::
  14        Generate a diffstat.  You can override the default
  15        output width for 80-column terminal by "--stat=width".
  16        The width of the filename part can be controlled by
  17        giving another width to it separated by a comma.
  18
  19--numstat::
  20        Similar to \--stat, but shows number of added and
  21        deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without
  22        abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly.  For
  23        binary files, outputs two `-` instead of saying
  24        `0 0`.
  25
  26--shortstat::
  27        Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
  28        number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
  29        lines.
  30
  31--summary::
  32        Output a condensed summary of extended header information
  33        such as creations, renames and mode changes.
  34
  35--patch-with-stat::
  36        Synonym for "-p --stat".
  37
  38-z::
  39        \0 line termination on output
  40
  41--name-only::
  42        Show only names of changed files.
  43
  44--name-status::
  45        Show only names and status of changed files.
  46
  47--color::
  48        Show colored diff.
  49
  50--no-color::
  51        Turn off colored diff, even when the configuration file
  52        gives the default to color output.
  53
  54--color-words::
  55        Show colored word diff, i.e. color words which have changed.
  56
  57--no-renames::
  58        Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration
  59        file gives the default to do so.
  60
  61--check::
  62        Warn if changes introduce trailing whitespace
  63        or an indent that uses a space before a tab.
  64
  65--full-index::
  66        Instead of the first handful characters, show full
  67        object name of pre- and post-image blob on the "index"
  68        line when generating a patch format output.
  69
  70--binary::
  71        In addition to --full-index, output "binary diff" that
  72        can be applied with "git apply".
  73
  74--abbrev[=<n>]::
  75        Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
  76        name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
  77        lines, show only handful hexdigits prefix.  This is
  78        independent of --full-index option above, which controls
  79        the diff-patch output format.  Non default number of
  80        digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
  81
  82-B::
  83        Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
  84
  85-M::
  86        Detect renames.
  87
  88-C::
  89        Detect copies as well as renames.
  90
  91--diff-filter=[ACDMRTUXB*]::
  92        Select only files that are Added (`A`), Copied (`C`),
  93        Deleted (`D`), Modified (`M`), Renamed (`R`), have their
  94        type (mode) changed (`T`), are Unmerged (`U`), are
  95        Unknown (`X`), or have had their pairing Broken (`B`).
  96        Any combination of the filter characters may be used.
  97        When `*` (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all
  98        paths are selected if there is any file that matches
  99        other criteria in the comparison; if there is no file
 100        that matches other criteria, nothing is selected.
 101
 102--find-copies-harder::
 103        For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only 
 104        if the original file of the copy was modified in the same 
 105        changeset.  This flag makes the command
 106        inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of
 107        copy.  This is a very expensive operation for large
 108        projects, so use it with caution.
 109
 110-l<num>::
 111        -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n
 112        is the number of potential rename/copy targets.  This
 113        option prevents rename/copy detection from running if
 114        the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified
 115        number.
 116
 117-S<string>::
 118        Look for differences that contain the change in <string>.
 119
 120--pickaxe-all::
 121        When -S finds a change, show all the changes in that
 122        changeset, not just the files that contain the change
 123        in <string>.
 124
 125--pickaxe-regex::
 126        Make the <string> not a plain string but an extended POSIX
 127        regex to match.
 128
 129-O<orderfile>::
 130        Output the patch in the order specified in the
 131        <orderfile>, which has one shell glob pattern per line.
 132
 133-R::
 134        Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
 135        on-disk file to tree contents.
 136
 137--text::
 138        Treat all files as text.
 139
 140-a::
 141        Shorthand for "--text".
 142
 143--ignore-space-at-eol::
 144        Ignore changes in white spaces at EOL.
 145
 146--ignore-space-change::
 147        Ignore changes in amount of white space.  This ignores white
 148        space at line end, and consider all other sequences of one or
 149        more white space characters to be equivalent.
 150
 151-b::
 152        Shorthand for "--ignore-space-change".
 153
 154--ignore-all-space::
 155        Ignore white space when comparing lines.  This ignores
 156        difference even if one line has white space where the other
 157        line has none.
 158
 159-w::
 160        Shorthand for "--ignore-all-space".
 161
 162--exit-code::
 163        Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1).
 164        That is, it exits with 1 if there were differences and
 165        0 means no differences.
 166
 167--quiet::
 168        Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
 169
 170For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
 171link:diffcore.html[diffcore documentation].