Documentation / diff-options.txton commit Merge branch 'nd/war-on-nul-in-commit' (f35ccd9)
   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--minimal::
  49        Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible
  50        diff is produced.
  51
  52--patience::
  53        Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
  54
  55--stat[=<width>[,<name-width>[,<count>]]]::
  56        Generate a diffstat.  You can override the default
  57        output width for 80-column terminal by `--stat=<width>`.
  58        The width of the filename part can be controlled by
  59        giving another width to it separated by a comma.
  60        By giving a third parameter `<count>`, you can limit the
  61        output to the first `<count>` lines, followed by
  62        `...` if there are more.
  63+
  64These parameters can also be set individually with `--stat-width=<width>`,
  65`--stat-name-width=<name-width>` and `--stat-count=<count>`.
  66
  67--numstat::
  68        Similar to `\--stat`, but shows number of added and
  69        deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without
  70        abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly.  For
  71        binary files, outputs two `-` instead of saying
  72        `0 0`.
  73
  74--shortstat::
  75        Output only the last line of the `--stat` format containing total
  76        number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
  77        lines.
  78
  79--dirstat[=<param1,param2,...>]::
  80        Output the distribution of relative amount of changes for each
  81        sub-directory. The behavior of `--dirstat` can be customized by
  82        passing it a comma separated list of parameters.
  83        The defaults are controlled by the `diff.dirstat` configuration
  84        variable (see linkgit:git-config[1]).
  85        The following parameters are available:
  86+
  87--
  88`changes`;;
  89        Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have been
  90        removed from the source, or added to the destination. This ignores
  91        the amount of pure code movements within a file.  In other words,
  92        rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much as other changes.
  93        This is the default behavior when no parameter is given.
  94`lines`;;
  95        Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based diff
  96        analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts. (For binary
  97        files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary files have no
  98        natural concept of lines). This is a more expensive `--dirstat`
  99        behavior than the `changes` behavior, but it does count rearranged
 100        lines within a file as much as other changes. The resulting output
 101        is consistent with what you get from the other `--*stat` options.
 102`files`;;
 103        Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files changed.
 104        Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat analysis. This is
 105        the computationally cheapest `--dirstat` behavior, since it does
 106        not have to look at the file contents at all.
 107`cumulative`;;
 108        Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory as well.
 109        Note that when using `cumulative`, the sum of the percentages
 110        reported may exceed 100%. The default (non-cumulative) behavior can
 111        be specified with the `noncumulative` parameter.
 112<limit>;;
 113        An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by default).
 114        Directories contributing less than this percentage of the changes
 115        are not shown in the output.
 116--
 117+
 118Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring
 119directories with less than 10% of the total amount of changed files,
 120and accumulating child directory counts in the parent directories:
 121`--dirstat=files,10,cumulative`.
 122
 123--summary::
 124        Output a condensed summary of extended header information
 125        such as creations, renames and mode changes.
 126
 127ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 128--patch-with-stat::
 129        Synonym for `-p --stat`.
 130endif::git-format-patch[]
 131
 132ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 133
 134-z::
 135ifdef::git-log[]
 136        Separate the commits with NULs instead of with new newlines.
 137+
 138Also, when `--raw` or `--numstat` has been given, do not munge
 139pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
 140endif::git-log[]
 141ifndef::git-log[]
 142        When `--raw`, `--numstat`, `--name-only` or `--name-status` has been
 143        given, do not munge pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
 144endif::git-log[]
 145+
 146Without this option, each pathname output will have TAB, LF, double quotes,
 147and backslash characters replaced with `\t`, `\n`, `\"`, and `\\`,
 148respectively, and the pathname will be enclosed in double quotes if
 149any of those replacements occurred.
 150
 151--name-only::
 152        Show only names of changed files.
 153
 154--name-status::
 155        Show only names and status of changed files. See the description
 156        of the `--diff-filter` option on what the status letters mean.
 157
 158--submodule[=<format>]::
 159        Chose the output format for submodule differences. <format> can be one of
 160        'short' and 'log'. 'short' just shows pairs of commit names, this format
 161        is used when this option is not given. 'log' is the default value for this
 162        option and lists the commits in that commit range like the 'summary'
 163        option of linkgit:git-submodule[1] does.
 164
 165--color[=<when>]::
 166        Show colored diff.
 167        The value must be `always` (the default for `<when>`), `never`, or `auto`.
 168        The default value is `never`.
 169ifdef::git-diff[]
 170        It can be changed by the `color.ui` and `color.diff`
 171        configuration settings.
 172endif::git-diff[]
 173
 174--no-color::
 175        Turn off colored diff.
 176ifdef::git-diff[]
 177        This can be used to override configuration settings.
 178endif::git-diff[]
 179        It is the same as `--color=never`.
 180
 181--word-diff[=<mode>]::
 182        Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words.
 183        By default, words are delimited by whitespace; see
 184        `--word-diff-regex` below.  The <mode> defaults to 'plain', and
 185        must be one of:
 186+
 187--
 188color::
 189        Highlight changed words using only colors.  Implies `--color`.
 190plain::
 191        Show words as `[-removed-]` and `{+added+}`.  Makes no
 192        attempts to escape the delimiters if they appear in the input,
 193        so the output may be ambiguous.
 194porcelain::
 195        Use a special line-based format intended for script
 196        consumption.  Added/removed/unchanged runs are printed in the
 197        usual unified diff format, starting with a `+`/`-`/` `
 198        character at the beginning of the line and extending to the
 199        end of the line.  Newlines in the input are represented by a
 200        tilde `~` on a line of its own.
 201none::
 202        Disable word diff again.
 203--
 204+
 205Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to
 206highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
 207
 208--word-diff-regex=<regex>::
 209        Use <regex> to decide what a word is, instead of considering
 210        runs of non-whitespace to be a word.  Also implies
 211        `--word-diff` unless it was already enabled.
 212+
 213Every non-overlapping match of the
 214<regex> is considered a word.  Anything between these matches is
 215considered whitespace and ignored(!) for the purposes of finding
 216differences.  You may want to append `|[^[:space:]]` to your regular
 217expression to make sure that it matches all non-whitespace characters.
 218A match that contains a newline is silently truncated(!) at the
 219newline.
 220+
 221The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration option, see
 222linkgit:gitattributes[1] or linkgit:git-config[1].  Giving it explicitly
 223overrides any diff driver or configuration setting.  Diff drivers
 224override configuration settings.
 225
 226--color-words[=<regex>]::
 227        Equivalent to `--word-diff=color` plus (if a regex was
 228        specified) `--word-diff-regex=<regex>`.
 229endif::git-format-patch[]
 230
 231--no-renames::
 232        Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration
 233        file gives the default to do so.
 234
 235ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 236--check::
 237        Warn if changes introduce whitespace errors.  What are
 238        considered whitespace errors is controlled by `core.whitespace`
 239        configuration.  By default, trailing whitespaces (including
 240        lines that solely consist of whitespaces) and a space character
 241        that is immediately followed by a tab character inside the
 242        initial indent of the line are considered whitespace errors.
 243        Exits with non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible
 244        with --exit-code.
 245endif::git-format-patch[]
 246
 247--full-index::
 248        Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full
 249        pre- and post-image blob object names on the "index"
 250        line when generating patch format output.
 251
 252--binary::
 253        In addition to `--full-index`, output a binary diff that
 254        can be applied with `git-apply`.
 255
 256--abbrev[=<n>]::
 257        Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
 258        name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
 259        lines, show only a partial prefix.  This is
 260        independent of the `--full-index` option above, which controls
 261        the diff-patch output format.  Non default number of
 262        digits can be specified with `--abbrev=<n>`.
 263
 264-B[<n>][/<m>]::
 265--break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]::
 266        Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and
 267        create. This serves two purposes:
 268+
 269It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a file
 270not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with a very
 271few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but as a
 272single deletion of everything old followed by a single insertion of
 273everything new, and the number `m` controls this aspect of the -B
 274option (defaults to 60%). `-B/70%` specifies that less than 30% of the
 275original should remain in the result for git to consider it a total
 276rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch will be a series of
 277deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).
 278+
 279When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as the
 280source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that disappeared
 281as the source of a rename), and the number `n` controls this aspect of
 282the -B option (defaults to 50%). `-B20%` specifies that a change with
 283addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of the file's size are
 284eligible for being picked up as a possible source of a rename to
 285another file.
 286
 287-M[<n>]::
 288--find-renames[=<n>]::
 289ifndef::git-log[]
 290        Detect renames.
 291endif::git-log[]
 292ifdef::git-log[]
 293        If generating diffs, detect and report renames for each commit.
 294        For following files across renames while traversing history, see
 295        `--follow`.
 296endif::git-log[]
 297        If `n` is specified, it is a threshold on the similarity
 298        index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
 299        file's size). For example, `-M90%` means git should consider a
 300        delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file
 301        hasn't changed.
 302
 303-C[<n>]::
 304--find-copies[=<n>]::
 305        Detect copies as well as renames.  See also `--find-copies-harder`.
 306        If `n` is specified, it has the same meaning as for `-M<n>`.
 307
 308--find-copies-harder::
 309        For performance reasons, by default, `-C` option finds copies only
 310        if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
 311        changeset.  This flag makes the command
 312        inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of
 313        copy.  This is a very expensive operation for large
 314        projects, so use it with caution.  Giving more than one
 315        `-C` option has the same effect.
 316
 317-D::
 318--irreversible-delete::
 319        Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
 320        the diff between the preimage and `/dev/null`. The resulting patch
 321        is not meant to be applied with `patch` nor `git apply`; this is
 322        solely for people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the
 323        text after the change. In addition, the output obviously lack
 324        enough information to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually,
 325        hence the name of the option.
 326+
 327When used together with `-B`, omit also the preimage in the deletion part
 328of a delete/create pair.
 329
 330-l<num>::
 331        The `-M` and `-C` options require O(n^2) processing time where n
 332        is the number of potential rename/copy targets.  This
 333        option prevents rename/copy detection from running if
 334        the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified
 335        number.
 336
 337ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 338--diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]::
 339        Select only files that are Added (`A`), Copied (`C`),
 340        Deleted (`D`), Modified (`M`), Renamed (`R`), have their
 341        type (i.e. regular file, symlink, submodule, ...) changed (`T`),
 342        are Unmerged (`U`), are
 343        Unknown (`X`), or have had their pairing Broken (`B`).
 344        Any combination of the filter characters (including none) can be used.
 345        When `*` (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all
 346        paths are selected if there is any file that matches
 347        other criteria in the comparison; if there is no file
 348        that matches other criteria, nothing is selected.
 349
 350-S<string>::
 351        Look for differences that introduce or remove an instance of
 352        <string>. Note that this is different than the string simply
 353        appearing in diff output; see the 'pickaxe' entry in
 354        linkgit:gitdiffcore[7] for more details.
 355
 356-G<regex>::
 357        Look for differences whose added or removed line matches
 358        the given <regex>.
 359
 360--pickaxe-all::
 361        When `-S` or `-G` finds a change, show all the changes in that
 362        changeset, not just the files that contain the change
 363        in <string>.
 364
 365--pickaxe-regex::
 366        Make the <string> not a plain string but an extended POSIX
 367        regex to match.
 368endif::git-format-patch[]
 369
 370-O<orderfile>::
 371        Output the patch in the order specified in the
 372        <orderfile>, which has one shell glob pattern per line.
 373
 374ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 375-R::
 376        Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
 377        on-disk file to tree contents.
 378
 379--relative[=<path>]::
 380        When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be
 381        told to exclude changes outside the directory and show
 382        pathnames relative to it with this option.  When you are
 383        not in a subdirectory (e.g. in a bare repository), you
 384        can name which subdirectory to make the output relative
 385        to by giving a <path> as an argument.
 386endif::git-format-patch[]
 387
 388-a::
 389--text::
 390        Treat all files as text.
 391
 392--ignore-space-at-eol::
 393        Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
 394
 395-b::
 396--ignore-space-change::
 397        Ignore changes in amount of whitespace.  This ignores whitespace
 398        at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or
 399        more whitespace characters to be equivalent.
 400
 401-w::
 402--ignore-all-space::
 403        Ignore whitespace when comparing lines.  This ignores
 404        differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
 405        line has none.
 406
 407--inter-hunk-context=<lines>::
 408        Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number
 409        of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other.
 410
 411-W::
 412--function-context::
 413        Show whole surrounding functions of changes.
 414
 415ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 416ifndef::git-log[]
 417--exit-code::
 418        Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1).
 419        That is, it exits with 1 if there were differences and
 420        0 means no differences.
 421
 422--quiet::
 423        Disable all output of the program. Implies `--exit-code`.
 424endif::git-log[]
 425endif::git-format-patch[]
 426
 427--ext-diff::
 428        Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
 429        external diff driver with linkgit:gitattributes[5], you need
 430        to use this option with linkgit:git-log[1] and friends.
 431
 432--no-ext-diff::
 433        Disallow external diff drivers.
 434
 435--textconv::
 436--no-textconv::
 437        Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run
 438        when comparing binary files. See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for
 439        details. Because textconv filters are typically a one-way
 440        conversion, the resulting diff is suitable for human
 441        consumption, but cannot be applied. For this reason, textconv
 442        filters are enabled by default only for linkgit:git-diff[1] and
 443        linkgit:git-log[1], but not for linkgit:git-format-patch[1] or
 444        diff plumbing commands.
 445
 446--ignore-submodules[=<when>]::
 447        Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
 448        either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default
 449        Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either contains
 450        untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the commit recorded
 451        in the superproject and can be used to override any settings of the
 452        'ignore' option in linkgit:git-config[1] or linkgit:gitmodules[5]. When
 453        "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when they only
 454        contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for modified
 455        content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work tree of submodules,
 456        only changes to the commits stored in the superproject are shown (this was
 457        the behavior until 1.7.0). Using "all" hides all changes to submodules.
 458
 459--src-prefix=<prefix>::
 460        Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
 461
 462--dst-prefix=<prefix>::
 463        Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
 464
 465--no-prefix::
 466        Do not show any source or destination prefix.
 467
 468For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
 469linkgit:gitdiffcore[7].