Documentation / diff-options.txton commit Make sure git-stash works from subdirectory. (ceff079)
   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        \0 line termination on output
  47
  48--name-only::
  49        Show only names of changed files.
  50
  51--name-status::
  52        Show only names and status of changed files.
  53
  54--color::
  55        Show colored diff.
  56
  57--no-color::
  58        Turn off colored diff, even when the configuration file
  59        gives the default to color output.
  60
  61--color-words::
  62        Show colored word diff, i.e. color words which have changed.
  63
  64--no-renames::
  65        Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration
  66        file gives the default to do so.
  67
  68--check::
  69        Warn if changes introduce trailing whitespace
  70        or an indent that uses a space before a tab.
  71
  72--full-index::
  73        Instead of the first handful characters, show full
  74        object name of pre- and post-image blob on the "index"
  75        line when generating a patch format output.
  76
  77--binary::
  78        In addition to --full-index, output "binary diff" that
  79        can be applied with "git apply".
  80
  81--abbrev[=<n>]::
  82        Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
  83        name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
  84        lines, show only handful hexdigits prefix.  This is
  85        independent of --full-index option above, which controls
  86        the diff-patch output format.  Non default number of
  87        digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
  88
  89-B::
  90        Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
  91
  92-M::
  93        Detect renames.
  94
  95-C::
  96        Detect copies as well as renames.  See also `--find-copies-harder`.
  97
  98--diff-filter=[ACDMRTUXB*]::
  99        Select only files that are Added (`A`), Copied (`C`),
 100        Deleted (`D`), Modified (`M`), Renamed (`R`), have their
 101        type (mode) changed (`T`), are Unmerged (`U`), are
 102        Unknown (`X`), or have had their pairing Broken (`B`).
 103        Any combination of the filter characters may be used.
 104        When `*` (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all
 105        paths are selected if there is any file that matches
 106        other criteria in the comparison; if there is no file
 107        that matches other criteria, nothing is selected.
 108
 109--find-copies-harder::
 110        For performance reasons, by default, `-C` option finds copies only
 111        if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
 112        changeset.  This flag makes the command
 113        inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of
 114        copy.  This is a very expensive operation for large
 115        projects, so use it with caution.  Giving more than one
 116        `-C` option has the same effect.
 117
 118-l<num>::
 119        -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n
 120        is the number of potential rename/copy targets.  This
 121        option prevents rename/copy detection from running if
 122        the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified
 123        number.
 124
 125-S<string>::
 126        Look for differences that contain the change in <string>.
 127
 128--pickaxe-all::
 129        When -S finds a change, show all the changes in that
 130        changeset, not just the files that contain the change
 131        in <string>.
 132
 133--pickaxe-regex::
 134        Make the <string> not a plain string but an extended POSIX
 135        regex to match.
 136
 137-O<orderfile>::
 138        Output the patch in the order specified in the
 139        <orderfile>, which has one shell glob pattern per line.
 140
 141-R::
 142        Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
 143        on-disk file to tree contents.
 144
 145--text::
 146        Treat all files as text.
 147
 148-a::
 149        Shorthand for "--text".
 150
 151--ignore-space-at-eol::
 152        Ignore changes in white spaces at EOL.
 153
 154--ignore-space-change::
 155        Ignore changes in amount of white space.  This ignores white
 156        space at line end, and consider all other sequences of one or
 157        more white space characters to be equivalent.
 158
 159-b::
 160        Shorthand for "--ignore-space-change".
 161
 162--ignore-all-space::
 163        Ignore white space when comparing lines.  This ignores
 164        difference even if one line has white space where the other
 165        line has none.
 166
 167-w::
 168        Shorthand for "--ignore-all-space".
 169
 170--exit-code::
 171        Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1).
 172        That is, it exits with 1 if there were differences and
 173        0 means no differences.
 174
 175--quiet::
 176        Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
 177
 178--ext-diff::
 179        Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
 180        external diff driver with gitlink:gitattributes(5), you need
 181        to use this option with gitlink:git-log(1) and friends.
 182
 183--no-ext-diff::
 184        Disallow external diff drivers.
 185
 186For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
 187link:diffcore.html[diffcore documentation].