Documentation / diff-options.txton commit SubmittingPatches: update GMail section (df5753c)
   1// Please don't remove this comment as asciidoc behaves badly when
   2// the first non-empty line is ifdef/ifndef. The symptom is that
   3// without this comment the <git-diff-core> attribute conditionally
   4// defined below ends up being defined unconditionally.
   5// Last checked with asciidoc 7.0.2.
   6
   7ifndef::git-format-patch[]
   8ifndef::git-diff[]
   9ifndef::git-log[]
  10:git-diff-core: 1
  11endif::git-log[]
  12endif::git-diff[]
  13endif::git-format-patch[]
  14
  15ifdef::git-format-patch[]
  16-p::
  17--no-stat::
  18        Generate plain patches without any diffstats.
  19endif::git-format-patch[]
  20
  21ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  22-p::
  23-u::
  24        Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
  25        {git-diff? This is the default.}
  26endif::git-format-patch[]
  27
  28-U<n>::
  29--unified=<n>::
  30        Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of
  31        the usual three.
  32ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  33        Implies `-p`.
  34endif::git-format-patch[]
  35
  36ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  37--raw::
  38        Generate the raw format.
  39        {git-diff-core? This is the default.}
  40endif::git-format-patch[]
  41
  42ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  43--patch-with-raw::
  44        Synonym for `-p --raw`.
  45endif::git-format-patch[]
  46
  47--patience::
  48        Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
  49
  50--stat[=width[,name-width]]::
  51        Generate a diffstat.  You can override the default
  52        output width for 80-column terminal by `--stat=width`.
  53        The width of the filename part can be controlled by
  54        giving another width to it separated by a comma.
  55
  56--numstat::
  57        Similar to `\--stat`, but shows number of added and
  58        deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without
  59        abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly.  For
  60        binary files, outputs two `-` instead of saying
  61        `0 0`.
  62
  63--shortstat::
  64        Output only the last line of the `--stat` format containing total
  65        number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
  66        lines.
  67
  68--dirstat[=limit]::
  69        Output the distribution of relative amount of changes (number of lines added or
  70        removed) for each sub-directory. Directories with changes below
  71        a cut-off percent (3% by default) are not shown. The cut-off percent
  72        can be set with `--dirstat=limit`. Changes in a child directory is not
  73        counted for the parent directory, unless `--cumulative` is used.
  74
  75--dirstat-by-file[=limit]::
  76        Same as `--dirstat`, but counts changed files instead of lines.
  77
  78--summary::
  79        Output a condensed summary of extended header information
  80        such as creations, renames and mode changes.
  81
  82ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  83--patch-with-stat::
  84        Synonym for `-p --stat`.
  85endif::git-format-patch[]
  86
  87ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  88
  89-z::
  90ifdef::git-log[]
  91        Separate the commits with NULs instead of with new newlines.
  92+
  93Also, when `--raw` or `--numstat` has been given, do not munge
  94pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
  95endif::git-log[]
  96ifndef::git-log[]
  97        When `--raw` or `--numstat` has been given, do not munge
  98        pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
  99endif::git-log[]
 100+
 101Without this option, each pathname output will have TAB, LF, double quotes,
 102and backslash characters replaced with `\t`, `\n`, `\"`, and `\\`,
 103respectively, and the pathname will be enclosed in double quotes if
 104any of those replacements occurred.
 105
 106--name-only::
 107        Show only names of changed files.
 108
 109--name-status::
 110        Show only names and status of changed files. See the description
 111        of the `--diff-filter` option on what the status letters mean.
 112
 113--submodule[=<format>]::
 114        Chose the output format for submodule differences. <format> can be one of
 115        'short' and 'log'. 'short' just shows pairs of commit names, this format
 116        is used when this option is not given. 'log' is the default value for this
 117        option and lists the commits in that commit range like the 'summary'
 118        option of linkgit:git-submodule[1] does.
 119
 120--color[=<when>]::
 121        Show colored diff.
 122        The value must be always (the default), never, or auto.
 123
 124--no-color::
 125        Turn off colored diff, even when the configuration file
 126        gives the default to color output.
 127        Same as `--color=never`.
 128
 129--color-words[=<regex>]::
 130        Show colored word diff, i.e., color words which have changed.
 131        By default, words are separated by whitespace.
 132+
 133When a <regex> is specified, every non-overlapping match of the
 134<regex> is considered a word.  Anything between these matches is
 135considered whitespace and ignored(!) for the purposes of finding
 136differences.  You may want to append `|[^[:space:]]` to your regular
 137expression to make sure that it matches all non-whitespace characters.
 138A match that contains a newline is silently truncated(!) at the
 139newline.
 140+
 141The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration option, see
 142linkgit:gitattributes[1] or linkgit:git-config[1].  Giving it explicitly
 143overrides any diff driver or configuration setting.  Diff drivers
 144override configuration settings.
 145endif::git-format-patch[]
 146
 147--no-renames::
 148        Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration
 149        file gives the default to do so.
 150
 151ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 152--check::
 153        Warn if changes introduce trailing whitespace
 154        or an indent that uses a space before a tab. Exits with
 155        non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible with
 156        --exit-code.
 157endif::git-format-patch[]
 158
 159--full-index::
 160        Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full
 161        pre- and post-image blob object names on the "index"
 162        line when generating patch format output.
 163
 164--binary::
 165        In addition to `--full-index`, output a binary diff that
 166        can be applied with `git-apply`.
 167
 168--abbrev[=<n>]::
 169        Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
 170        name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
 171        lines, show only a partial prefix.  This is
 172        independent of the `--full-index` option above, which controls
 173        the diff-patch output format.  Non default number of
 174        digits can be specified with `--abbrev=<n>`.
 175
 176-B::
 177        Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
 178
 179-M::
 180        Detect renames.
 181
 182-C::
 183        Detect copies as well as renames.  See also `--find-copies-harder`.
 184
 185ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 186--diff-filter=[ACDMRTUXB*]::
 187        Select only files that are Added (`A`), Copied (`C`),
 188        Deleted (`D`), Modified (`M`), Renamed (`R`), have their
 189        type (i.e. regular file, symlink, submodule, ...) changed (`T`),
 190        are Unmerged (`U`), are
 191        Unknown (`X`), or have had their pairing Broken (`B`).
 192        Any combination of the filter characters may be used.
 193        When `*` (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all
 194        paths are selected if there is any file that matches
 195        other criteria in the comparison; if there is no file
 196        that matches other criteria, nothing is selected.
 197endif::git-format-patch[]
 198
 199--find-copies-harder::
 200        For performance reasons, by default, `-C` option finds copies only
 201        if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
 202        changeset.  This flag makes the command
 203        inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of
 204        copy.  This is a very expensive operation for large
 205        projects, so use it with caution.  Giving more than one
 206        `-C` option has the same effect.
 207
 208-l<num>::
 209        The `-M` and `-C` options require O(n^2) processing time where n
 210        is the number of potential rename/copy targets.  This
 211        option prevents rename/copy detection from running if
 212        the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified
 213        number.
 214
 215ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 216-S<string>::
 217        Look for differences that introduce or remove an instance of
 218        <string>. Note that this is different than the string simply
 219        appearing in diff output; see the 'pickaxe' entry in
 220        linkgit:gitdiffcore[7] for more details.
 221
 222--pickaxe-all::
 223        When `-S` finds a change, show all the changes in that
 224        changeset, not just the files that contain the change
 225        in <string>.
 226
 227--pickaxe-regex::
 228        Make the <string> not a plain string but an extended POSIX
 229        regex to match.
 230endif::git-format-patch[]
 231
 232-O<orderfile>::
 233        Output the patch in the order specified in the
 234        <orderfile>, which has one shell glob pattern per line.
 235
 236ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 237-R::
 238        Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
 239        on-disk file to tree contents.
 240
 241--relative[=<path>]::
 242        When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be
 243        told to exclude changes outside the directory and show
 244        pathnames relative to it with this option.  When you are
 245        not in a subdirectory (e.g. in a bare repository), you
 246        can name which subdirectory to make the output relative
 247        to by giving a <path> as an argument.
 248endif::git-format-patch[]
 249
 250-a::
 251--text::
 252        Treat all files as text.
 253
 254--ignore-space-at-eol::
 255        Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
 256
 257-b::
 258--ignore-space-change::
 259        Ignore changes in amount of whitespace.  This ignores whitespace
 260        at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or
 261        more whitespace characters to be equivalent.
 262
 263-w::
 264--ignore-all-space::
 265        Ignore whitespace when comparing lines.  This ignores
 266        differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
 267        line has none.
 268
 269--inter-hunk-context=<lines>::
 270        Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number
 271        of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other.
 272
 273ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 274--exit-code::
 275        Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1).
 276        That is, it exits with 1 if there were differences and
 277        0 means no differences.
 278
 279--quiet::
 280        Disable all output of the program. Implies `--exit-code`.
 281endif::git-format-patch[]
 282
 283--ext-diff::
 284        Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
 285        external diff driver with linkgit:gitattributes[5], you need
 286        to use this option with linkgit:git-log[1] and friends.
 287
 288--no-ext-diff::
 289        Disallow external diff drivers.
 290
 291--ignore-submodules::
 292        Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation.
 293
 294--src-prefix=<prefix>::
 295        Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
 296
 297--dst-prefix=<prefix>::
 298        Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
 299
 300--no-prefix::
 301        Do not show any source or destination prefix.
 302
 303For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
 304linkgit:gitdiffcore[7].