Documentation / diff-options.txton commit Update draft release notes to 1.7.5.2 (ea1ab4b)
   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--patch::
  25        Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
  26        {git-diff? This is the default.}
  27endif::git-format-patch[]
  28
  29-U<n>::
  30--unified=<n>::
  31        Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of
  32        the usual three.
  33ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  34        Implies `-p`.
  35endif::git-format-patch[]
  36
  37ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  38--raw::
  39        Generate the raw format.
  40        {git-diff-core? This is the default.}
  41endif::git-format-patch[]
  42
  43ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  44--patch-with-raw::
  45        Synonym for `-p --raw`.
  46endif::git-format-patch[]
  47
  48--patience::
  49        Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
  50
  51--stat[=<width>[,<name-width>]]::
  52        Generate a diffstat.  You can override the default
  53        output width for 80-column terminal by `--stat=<width>`.
  54        The width of the filename part can be controlled by
  55        giving another width to it separated by a comma.
  56
  57--numstat::
  58        Similar to `\--stat`, but shows number of added and
  59        deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without
  60        abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly.  For
  61        binary files, outputs two `-` instead of saying
  62        `0 0`.
  63
  64--shortstat::
  65        Output only the last line of the `--stat` format containing total
  66        number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
  67        lines.
  68
  69--dirstat[=<limit>]::
  70        Output the distribution of relative amount of changes (number of lines added or
  71        removed) for each sub-directory. Directories with changes below
  72        a cut-off percent (3% by default) are not shown. The cut-off percent
  73        can be set with `--dirstat=<limit>`. Changes in a child directory are not
  74        counted for the parent directory, unless `--cumulative` is used.
  75+
  76Note that the `--dirstat` option computes the changes while ignoring
  77the amount of pure code movements within a file.  In other words,
  78rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much as other changes.
  79
  80--dirstat-by-file[=<limit>]::
  81        Same as `--dirstat`, but counts changed files instead of lines.
  82
  83--summary::
  84        Output a condensed summary of extended header information
  85        such as creations, renames and mode changes.
  86
  87ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  88--patch-with-stat::
  89        Synonym for `-p --stat`.
  90endif::git-format-patch[]
  91
  92ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  93
  94-z::
  95ifdef::git-log[]
  96        Separate the commits with NULs instead of with new newlines.
  97+
  98Also, when `--raw` or `--numstat` has been given, do not munge
  99pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
 100endif::git-log[]
 101ifndef::git-log[]
 102        When `--raw`, `--numstat`, `--name-only` or `--name-status` has been
 103        given, do not munge pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
 104endif::git-log[]
 105+
 106Without this option, each pathname output will have TAB, LF, double quotes,
 107and backslash characters replaced with `\t`, `\n`, `\"`, and `\\`,
 108respectively, and the pathname will be enclosed in double quotes if
 109any of those replacements occurred.
 110
 111--name-only::
 112        Show only names of changed files.
 113
 114--name-status::
 115        Show only names and status of changed files. See the description
 116        of the `--diff-filter` option on what the status letters mean.
 117
 118--submodule[=<format>]::
 119        Chose the output format for submodule differences. <format> can be one of
 120        'short' and 'log'. 'short' just shows pairs of commit names, this format
 121        is used when this option is not given. 'log' is the default value for this
 122        option and lists the commits in that commit range like the 'summary'
 123        option of linkgit:git-submodule[1] does.
 124
 125--color[=<when>]::
 126        Show colored diff.
 127        The value must be always (the default), never, or auto.
 128
 129--no-color::
 130        Turn off colored diff, even when the configuration file
 131        gives the default to color output.
 132        Same as `--color=never`.
 133
 134--word-diff[=<mode>]::
 135        Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words.
 136        By default, words are delimited by whitespace; see
 137        `--word-diff-regex` below.  The <mode> defaults to 'plain', and
 138        must be one of:
 139+
 140--
 141color::
 142        Highlight changed words using only colors.  Implies `--color`.
 143plain::
 144        Show words as `[-removed-]` and `{+added+}`.  Makes no
 145        attempts to escape the delimiters if they appear in the input,
 146        so the output may be ambiguous.
 147porcelain::
 148        Use a special line-based format intended for script
 149        consumption.  Added/removed/unchanged runs are printed in the
 150        usual unified diff format, starting with a `+`/`-`/` `
 151        character at the beginning of the line and extending to the
 152        end of the line.  Newlines in the input are represented by a
 153        tilde `~` on a line of its own.
 154none::
 155        Disable word diff again.
 156--
 157+
 158Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to
 159highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
 160
 161--word-diff-regex=<regex>::
 162        Use <regex> to decide what a word is, instead of considering
 163        runs of non-whitespace to be a word.  Also implies
 164        `--word-diff` unless it was already enabled.
 165+
 166Every non-overlapping match of the
 167<regex> is considered a word.  Anything between these matches is
 168considered whitespace and ignored(!) for the purposes of finding
 169differences.  You may want to append `|[^[:space:]]` to your regular
 170expression to make sure that it matches all non-whitespace characters.
 171A match that contains a newline is silently truncated(!) at the
 172newline.
 173+
 174The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration option, see
 175linkgit:gitattributes[1] or linkgit:git-config[1].  Giving it explicitly
 176overrides any diff driver or configuration setting.  Diff drivers
 177override configuration settings.
 178
 179--color-words[=<regex>]::
 180        Equivalent to `--word-diff=color` plus (if a regex was
 181        specified) `--word-diff-regex=<regex>`.
 182endif::git-format-patch[]
 183
 184--no-renames::
 185        Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration
 186        file gives the default to do so.
 187
 188ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 189--check::
 190        Warn if changes introduce trailing whitespace
 191        or an indent that uses a space before a tab. Exits with
 192        non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible with
 193        --exit-code.
 194endif::git-format-patch[]
 195
 196--full-index::
 197        Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full
 198        pre- and post-image blob object names on the "index"
 199        line when generating patch format output.
 200
 201--binary::
 202        In addition to `--full-index`, output a binary diff that
 203        can be applied with `git-apply`.
 204
 205--abbrev[=<n>]::
 206        Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
 207        name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
 208        lines, show only a partial prefix.  This is
 209        independent of the `--full-index` option above, which controls
 210        the diff-patch output format.  Non default number of
 211        digits can be specified with `--abbrev=<n>`.
 212
 213-B[<n>][/<m>]::
 214--break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]::
 215        Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and
 216        create. This serves two purposes:
 217+
 218It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a file
 219not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with a very
 220few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but as a
 221single deletion of everything old followed by a single insertion of
 222everything new, and the number `m` controls this aspect of the -B
 223option (defaults to 60%). `-B/70%` specifies that less than 30% of the
 224original should remain in the result for git to consider it a total
 225rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch will be a series of
 226deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).
 227+
 228When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as the
 229source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that disappeared
 230as the source of a rename), and the number `n` controls this aspect of
 231the -B option (defaults to 50%). `-B20%` specifies that a change with
 232addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of the file's size are
 233eligible for being picked up as a possible source of a rename to
 234another file.
 235
 236-M[<n>]::
 237--find-renames[=<n>]::
 238ifndef::git-log[]
 239        Detect renames.
 240endif::git-log[]
 241ifdef::git-log[]
 242        If generating diffs, detect and report renames for each commit.
 243        For following files across renames while traversing history, see
 244        `--follow`.
 245endif::git-log[]
 246        If `n` is specified, it is a threshold on the similarity
 247        index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
 248        file's size). For example, `-M90%` means git should consider a
 249        delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file
 250        hasn't changed.
 251
 252-C[<n>]::
 253--find-copies[=<n>]::
 254        Detect copies as well as renames.  See also `--find-copies-harder`.
 255        If `n` is specified, it has the same meaning as for `-M<n>`.
 256
 257--find-copies-harder::
 258        For performance reasons, by default, `-C` option finds copies only
 259        if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
 260        changeset.  This flag makes the command
 261        inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of
 262        copy.  This is a very expensive operation for large
 263        projects, so use it with caution.  Giving more than one
 264        `-C` option has the same effect.
 265
 266-l<num>::
 267        The `-M` and `-C` options require O(n^2) processing time where n
 268        is the number of potential rename/copy targets.  This
 269        option prevents rename/copy detection from running if
 270        the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified
 271        number.
 272
 273ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 274--diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]::
 275        Select only files that are Added (`A`), Copied (`C`),
 276        Deleted (`D`), Modified (`M`), Renamed (`R`), have their
 277        type (i.e. regular file, symlink, submodule, ...) changed (`T`),
 278        are Unmerged (`U`), are
 279        Unknown (`X`), or have had their pairing Broken (`B`).
 280        Any combination of the filter characters (including none) can be used.
 281        When `*` (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all
 282        paths are selected if there is any file that matches
 283        other criteria in the comparison; if there is no file
 284        that matches other criteria, nothing is selected.
 285
 286-S<string>::
 287        Look for differences that introduce or remove an instance of
 288        <string>. Note that this is different than the string simply
 289        appearing in diff output; see the 'pickaxe' entry in
 290        linkgit:gitdiffcore[7] for more details.
 291
 292-G<regex>::
 293        Look for differences whose added or removed line matches
 294        the given <regex>.
 295
 296--pickaxe-all::
 297        When `-S` or `-G` finds a change, show all the changes in that
 298        changeset, not just the files that contain the change
 299        in <string>.
 300
 301--pickaxe-regex::
 302        Make the <string> not a plain string but an extended POSIX
 303        regex to match.
 304endif::git-format-patch[]
 305
 306-O<orderfile>::
 307        Output the patch in the order specified in the
 308        <orderfile>, which has one shell glob pattern per line.
 309
 310ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 311-R::
 312        Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
 313        on-disk file to tree contents.
 314
 315--relative[=<path>]::
 316        When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be
 317        told to exclude changes outside the directory and show
 318        pathnames relative to it with this option.  When you are
 319        not in a subdirectory (e.g. in a bare repository), you
 320        can name which subdirectory to make the output relative
 321        to by giving a <path> as an argument.
 322endif::git-format-patch[]
 323
 324-a::
 325--text::
 326        Treat all files as text.
 327
 328--ignore-space-at-eol::
 329        Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
 330
 331-b::
 332--ignore-space-change::
 333        Ignore changes in amount of whitespace.  This ignores whitespace
 334        at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or
 335        more whitespace characters to be equivalent.
 336
 337-w::
 338--ignore-all-space::
 339        Ignore whitespace when comparing lines.  This ignores
 340        differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
 341        line has none.
 342
 343--inter-hunk-context=<lines>::
 344        Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number
 345        of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other.
 346
 347ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 348--exit-code::
 349        Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1).
 350        That is, it exits with 1 if there were differences and
 351        0 means no differences.
 352
 353--quiet::
 354        Disable all output of the program. Implies `--exit-code`.
 355endif::git-format-patch[]
 356
 357--ext-diff::
 358        Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
 359        external diff driver with linkgit:gitattributes[5], you need
 360        to use this option with linkgit:git-log[1] and friends.
 361
 362--no-ext-diff::
 363        Disallow external diff drivers.
 364
 365--ignore-submodules[=<when>]::
 366        Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
 367        either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default
 368        Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either contains
 369        untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the commit recorded
 370        in the superproject and can be used to override any settings of the
 371        'ignore' option in linkgit:git-config[1] or linkgit:gitmodules[5]. When
 372        "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when they only
 373        contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for modified
 374        content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work tree of submodules,
 375        only changes to the commits stored in the superproject are shown (this was
 376        the behavior until 1.7.0). Using "all" hides all changes to submodules.
 377
 378--src-prefix=<prefix>::
 379        Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
 380
 381--dst-prefix=<prefix>::
 382        Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
 383
 384--no-prefix::
 385        Do not show any source or destination prefix.
 386
 387For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
 388linkgit:gitdiffcore[7].