Documentation / diff-options.txton commit describe doc: remove '7-char' abbreviation reference (ffea024)
   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).
  26ifdef::git-diff[]
  27        This is the default.
  28endif::git-diff[]
  29
  30-s::
  31--no-patch::
  32        Suppress diff output. Useful for commands like `git show` that
  33        show the patch by default, or to cancel the effect of `--patch`.
  34endif::git-format-patch[]
  35
  36-U<n>::
  37--unified=<n>::
  38        Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of
  39        the usual three.
  40ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  41        Implies `-p`.
  42endif::git-format-patch[]
  43
  44ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  45--raw::
  46ifndef::git-log[]
  47        Generate the diff in raw format.
  48ifdef::git-diff-core[]
  49        This is the default.
  50endif::git-diff-core[]
  51endif::git-log[]
  52ifdef::git-log[]
  53        For each commit, show a summary of changes using the raw diff
  54        format. See the "RAW OUTPUT FORMAT" section of
  55        linkgit:git-diff[1]. This is different from showing the log
  56        itself in raw format, which you can achieve with
  57        `--format=raw`.
  58endif::git-log[]
  59endif::git-format-patch[]
  60
  61ifndef::git-format-patch[]
  62--patch-with-raw::
  63        Synonym for `-p --raw`.
  64endif::git-format-patch[]
  65
  66--indent-heuristic::
  67        Enable the heuristic that shifts diff hunk boundaries to make patches
  68        easier to read. This is the default.
  69
  70--no-indent-heuristic::
  71        Disable the indent heuristic.
  72
  73--minimal::
  74        Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible
  75        diff is produced.
  76
  77--patience::
  78        Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
  79
  80--histogram::
  81        Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.
  82
  83--anchored=<text>::
  84        Generate a diff using the "anchored diff" algorithm.
  85+
  86This option may be specified more than once.
  87+
  88If a line exists in both the source and destination, exists only once,
  89and starts with this text, this algorithm attempts to prevent it from
  90appearing as a deletion or addition in the output. It uses the "patience
  91diff" algorithm internally.
  92
  93--diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}::
  94        Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
  95+
  96--
  97`default`, `myers`;;
  98        The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the default.
  99`minimal`;;
 100        Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
 101        produced.
 102`patience`;;
 103        Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
 104`histogram`;;
 105        This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
 106        low-occurrence common elements".
 107--
 108+
 109For instance, if you configured the `diff.algorithm` variable to a
 110non-default value and want to use the default one, then you
 111have to use `--diff-algorithm=default` option.
 112
 113--stat[=<width>[,<name-width>[,<count>]]]::
 114        Generate a diffstat. By default, as much space as necessary
 115        will be used for the filename part, and the rest for the graph
 116        part. Maximum width defaults to terminal width, or 80 columns
 117        if not connected to a terminal, and can be overridden by
 118        `<width>`. The width of the filename part can be limited by
 119        giving another width `<name-width>` after a comma. The width
 120        of the graph part can be limited by using
 121        `--stat-graph-width=<width>` (affects all commands generating
 122        a stat graph) or by setting `diff.statGraphWidth=<width>`
 123        (does not affect `git format-patch`).
 124        By giving a third parameter `<count>`, you can limit the
 125        output to the first `<count>` lines, followed by `...` if
 126        there are more.
 127+
 128These parameters can also be set individually with `--stat-width=<width>`,
 129`--stat-name-width=<name-width>` and `--stat-count=<count>`.
 130
 131--compact-summary::
 132        Output a condensed summary of extended header information such
 133        as file creations or deletions ("new" or "gone", optionally "+l"
 134        if it's a symlink) and mode changes ("+x" or "-x" for adding
 135        or removing executable bit respectively) in diffstat. The
 136        information is put between the filename part and the graph
 137        part. Implies `--stat`.
 138
 139--numstat::
 140        Similar to `--stat`, but shows number of added and
 141        deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without
 142        abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly.  For
 143        binary files, outputs two `-` instead of saying
 144        `0 0`.
 145
 146--shortstat::
 147        Output only the last line of the `--stat` format containing total
 148        number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
 149        lines.
 150
 151--dirstat[=<param1,param2,...>]::
 152        Output the distribution of relative amount of changes for each
 153        sub-directory. The behavior of `--dirstat` can be customized by
 154        passing it a comma separated list of parameters.
 155        The defaults are controlled by the `diff.dirstat` configuration
 156        variable (see linkgit:git-config[1]).
 157        The following parameters are available:
 158+
 159--
 160`changes`;;
 161        Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have been
 162        removed from the source, or added to the destination. This ignores
 163        the amount of pure code movements within a file.  In other words,
 164        rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much as other changes.
 165        This is the default behavior when no parameter is given.
 166`lines`;;
 167        Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based diff
 168        analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts. (For binary
 169        files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary files have no
 170        natural concept of lines). This is a more expensive `--dirstat`
 171        behavior than the `changes` behavior, but it does count rearranged
 172        lines within a file as much as other changes. The resulting output
 173        is consistent with what you get from the other `--*stat` options.
 174`files`;;
 175        Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files changed.
 176        Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat analysis. This is
 177        the computationally cheapest `--dirstat` behavior, since it does
 178        not have to look at the file contents at all.
 179`cumulative`;;
 180        Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory as well.
 181        Note that when using `cumulative`, the sum of the percentages
 182        reported may exceed 100%. The default (non-cumulative) behavior can
 183        be specified with the `noncumulative` parameter.
 184<limit>;;
 185        An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by default).
 186        Directories contributing less than this percentage of the changes
 187        are not shown in the output.
 188--
 189+
 190Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring
 191directories with less than 10% of the total amount of changed files,
 192and accumulating child directory counts in the parent directories:
 193`--dirstat=files,10,cumulative`.
 194
 195--summary::
 196        Output a condensed summary of extended header information
 197        such as creations, renames and mode changes.
 198
 199ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 200--patch-with-stat::
 201        Synonym for `-p --stat`.
 202endif::git-format-patch[]
 203
 204ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 205
 206-z::
 207ifdef::git-log[]
 208        Separate the commits with NULs instead of with new newlines.
 209+
 210Also, when `--raw` or `--numstat` has been given, do not munge
 211pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
 212endif::git-log[]
 213ifndef::git-log[]
 214        When `--raw`, `--numstat`, `--name-only` or `--name-status` has been
 215        given, do not munge pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
 216endif::git-log[]
 217+
 218Without this option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as
 219explained for the configuration variable `core.quotePath` (see
 220linkgit:git-config[1]).
 221
 222--name-only::
 223        Show only names of changed files.
 224
 225--name-status::
 226        Show only names and status of changed files. See the description
 227        of the `--diff-filter` option on what the status letters mean.
 228
 229--submodule[=<format>]::
 230        Specify how differences in submodules are shown.  When specifying
 231        `--submodule=short` the 'short' format is used.  This format just
 232        shows the names of the commits at the beginning and end of the range.
 233        When `--submodule` or `--submodule=log` is specified, the 'log'
 234        format is used.  This format lists the commits in the range like
 235        linkgit:git-submodule[1] `summary` does.  When `--submodule=diff`
 236        is specified, the 'diff' format is used.  This format shows an
 237        inline diff of the changes in the submodule contents between the
 238        commit range.  Defaults to `diff.submodule` or the 'short' format
 239        if the config option is unset.
 240
 241--color[=<when>]::
 242        Show colored diff.
 243        `--color` (i.e. without '=<when>') is the same as `--color=always`.
 244        '<when>' can be one of `always`, `never`, or `auto`.
 245ifdef::git-diff[]
 246        It can be changed by the `color.ui` and `color.diff`
 247        configuration settings.
 248endif::git-diff[]
 249
 250--no-color::
 251        Turn off colored diff.
 252ifdef::git-diff[]
 253        This can be used to override configuration settings.
 254endif::git-diff[]
 255        It is the same as `--color=never`.
 256
 257--color-moved[=<mode>]::
 258        Moved lines of code are colored differently.
 259ifdef::git-diff[]
 260        It can be changed by the `diff.colorMoved` configuration setting.
 261endif::git-diff[]
 262        The <mode> defaults to 'no' if the option is not given
 263        and to 'zebra' if the option with no mode is given.
 264        The mode must be one of:
 265+
 266--
 267no::
 268        Moved lines are not highlighted.
 269default::
 270        Is a synonym for `zebra`. This may change to a more sensible mode
 271        in the future.
 272plain::
 273        Any line that is added in one location and was removed
 274        in another location will be colored with 'color.diff.newMoved'.
 275        Similarly 'color.diff.oldMoved' will be used for removed lines
 276        that are added somewhere else in the diff. This mode picks up any
 277        moved line, but it is not very useful in a review to determine
 278        if a block of code was moved without permutation.
 279blocks::
 280        Blocks of moved text of at least 20 alphanumeric characters
 281        are detected greedily. The detected blocks are
 282        painted using either the 'color.diff.{old,new}Moved' color.
 283        Adjacent blocks cannot be told apart.
 284zebra::
 285        Blocks of moved text are detected as in 'blocks' mode. The blocks
 286        are painted using either the 'color.diff.{old,new}Moved' color or
 287        'color.diff.{old,new}MovedAlternative'. The change between
 288        the two colors indicates that a new block was detected.
 289dimmed-zebra::
 290        Similar to 'zebra', but additional dimming of uninteresting parts
 291        of moved code is performed. The bordering lines of two adjacent
 292        blocks are considered interesting, the rest is uninteresting.
 293        `dimmed_zebra` is a deprecated synonym.
 294--
 295
 296--no-color-moved::
 297        Turn off move detection. This can be used to override configuration
 298        settings. It is the same as `--color-moved=no`.
 299
 300--color-moved-ws=<modes>::
 301        This configures how whitespace is ignored when performing the
 302        move detection for `--color-moved`.
 303ifdef::git-diff[]
 304        It can be set by the `diff.colorMovedWS` configuration setting.
 305endif::git-diff[]
 306        These modes can be given as a comma separated list:
 307+
 308--
 309no::
 310        Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection.
 311ignore-space-at-eol::
 312        Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
 313ignore-space-change::
 314        Ignore changes in amount of whitespace.  This ignores whitespace
 315        at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or
 316        more whitespace characters to be equivalent.
 317ignore-all-space::
 318        Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
 319        even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
 320allow-indentation-change::
 321        Initially ignore any whitespace in the move detection, then
 322        group the moved code blocks only into a block if the change in
 323        whitespace is the same per line. This is incompatible with the
 324        other modes.
 325--
 326
 327--no-color-moved-ws::
 328        Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection. This can be
 329        used to override configuration settings. It is the same as
 330        `--color-moved-ws=no`.
 331
 332--word-diff[=<mode>]::
 333        Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words.
 334        By default, words are delimited by whitespace; see
 335        `--word-diff-regex` below.  The <mode> defaults to 'plain', and
 336        must be one of:
 337+
 338--
 339color::
 340        Highlight changed words using only colors.  Implies `--color`.
 341plain::
 342        Show words as `[-removed-]` and `{+added+}`.  Makes no
 343        attempts to escape the delimiters if they appear in the input,
 344        so the output may be ambiguous.
 345porcelain::
 346        Use a special line-based format intended for script
 347        consumption.  Added/removed/unchanged runs are printed in the
 348        usual unified diff format, starting with a `+`/`-`/` `
 349        character at the beginning of the line and extending to the
 350        end of the line.  Newlines in the input are represented by a
 351        tilde `~` on a line of its own.
 352none::
 353        Disable word diff again.
 354--
 355+
 356Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to
 357highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
 358
 359--word-diff-regex=<regex>::
 360        Use <regex> to decide what a word is, instead of considering
 361        runs of non-whitespace to be a word.  Also implies
 362        `--word-diff` unless it was already enabled.
 363+
 364Every non-overlapping match of the
 365<regex> is considered a word.  Anything between these matches is
 366considered whitespace and ignored(!) for the purposes of finding
 367differences.  You may want to append `|[^[:space:]]` to your regular
 368expression to make sure that it matches all non-whitespace characters.
 369A match that contains a newline is silently truncated(!) at the
 370newline.
 371+
 372For example, `--word-diff-regex=.` will treat each character as a word
 373and, correspondingly, show differences character by character.
 374+
 375The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration option, see
 376linkgit:gitattributes[5] or linkgit:git-config[1].  Giving it explicitly
 377overrides any diff driver or configuration setting.  Diff drivers
 378override configuration settings.
 379
 380--color-words[=<regex>]::
 381        Equivalent to `--word-diff=color` plus (if a regex was
 382        specified) `--word-diff-regex=<regex>`.
 383endif::git-format-patch[]
 384
 385--no-renames::
 386        Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration
 387        file gives the default to do so.
 388
 389ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 390--check::
 391        Warn if changes introduce conflict markers or whitespace errors.
 392        What are considered whitespace errors is controlled by `core.whitespace`
 393        configuration.  By default, trailing whitespaces (including
 394        lines that consist solely of whitespaces) and a space character
 395        that is immediately followed by a tab character inside the
 396        initial indent of the line are considered whitespace errors.
 397        Exits with non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible
 398        with --exit-code.
 399
 400--ws-error-highlight=<kind>::
 401        Highlight whitespace errors in the `context`, `old` or `new`
 402        lines of the diff.  Multiple values are separated by comma,
 403        `none` resets previous values, `default` reset the list to
 404        `new` and `all` is a shorthand for `old,new,context`.  When
 405        this option is not given, and the configuration variable
 406        `diff.wsErrorHighlight` is not set, only whitespace errors in
 407        `new` lines are highlighted. The whitespace errors are colored
 408        with `color.diff.whitespace`.
 409
 410endif::git-format-patch[]
 411
 412--full-index::
 413        Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full
 414        pre- and post-image blob object names on the "index"
 415        line when generating patch format output.
 416
 417--binary::
 418        In addition to `--full-index`, output a binary diff that
 419        can be applied with `git-apply`.
 420
 421--abbrev[=<n>]::
 422        Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
 423        name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
 424        lines, show only a partial prefix.  This is
 425        independent of the `--full-index` option above, which controls
 426        the diff-patch output format.  Non default number of
 427        digits can be specified with `--abbrev=<n>`.
 428
 429-B[<n>][/<m>]::
 430--break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]::
 431        Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and
 432        create. This serves two purposes:
 433+
 434It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a file
 435not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with a very
 436few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but as a
 437single deletion of everything old followed by a single insertion of
 438everything new, and the number `m` controls this aspect of the -B
 439option (defaults to 60%). `-B/70%` specifies that less than 30% of the
 440original should remain in the result for Git to consider it a total
 441rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch will be a series of
 442deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).
 443+
 444When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as the
 445source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that disappeared
 446as the source of a rename), and the number `n` controls this aspect of
 447the -B option (defaults to 50%). `-B20%` specifies that a change with
 448addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of the file's size are
 449eligible for being picked up as a possible source of a rename to
 450another file.
 451
 452-M[<n>]::
 453--find-renames[=<n>]::
 454ifndef::git-log[]
 455        Detect renames.
 456endif::git-log[]
 457ifdef::git-log[]
 458        If generating diffs, detect and report renames for each commit.
 459        For following files across renames while traversing history, see
 460        `--follow`.
 461endif::git-log[]
 462        If `n` is specified, it is a threshold on the similarity
 463        index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
 464        file's size). For example, `-M90%` means Git should consider a
 465        delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file
 466        hasn't changed.  Without a `%` sign, the number is to be read as
 467        a fraction, with a decimal point before it.  I.e., `-M5` becomes
 468        0.5, and is thus the same as `-M50%`.  Similarly, `-M05` is
 469        the same as `-M5%`.  To limit detection to exact renames, use
 470        `-M100%`.  The default similarity index is 50%.
 471
 472-C[<n>]::
 473--find-copies[=<n>]::
 474        Detect copies as well as renames.  See also `--find-copies-harder`.
 475        If `n` is specified, it has the same meaning as for `-M<n>`.
 476
 477--find-copies-harder::
 478        For performance reasons, by default, `-C` option finds copies only
 479        if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
 480        changeset.  This flag makes the command
 481        inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of
 482        copy.  This is a very expensive operation for large
 483        projects, so use it with caution.  Giving more than one
 484        `-C` option has the same effect.
 485
 486-D::
 487--irreversible-delete::
 488        Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
 489        the diff between the preimage and `/dev/null`. The resulting patch
 490        is not meant to be applied with `patch` or `git apply`; this is
 491        solely for people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the
 492        text after the change. In addition, the output obviously lacks
 493        enough information to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually,
 494        hence the name of the option.
 495+
 496When used together with `-B`, omit also the preimage in the deletion part
 497of a delete/create pair.
 498
 499-l<num>::
 500        The `-M` and `-C` options require O(n^2) processing time where n
 501        is the number of potential rename/copy targets.  This
 502        option prevents rename/copy detection from running if
 503        the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified
 504        number.
 505
 506ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 507--diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]::
 508        Select only files that are Added (`A`), Copied (`C`),
 509        Deleted (`D`), Modified (`M`), Renamed (`R`), have their
 510        type (i.e. regular file, symlink, submodule, ...) changed (`T`),
 511        are Unmerged (`U`), are
 512        Unknown (`X`), or have had their pairing Broken (`B`).
 513        Any combination of the filter characters (including none) can be used.
 514        When `*` (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all
 515        paths are selected if there is any file that matches
 516        other criteria in the comparison; if there is no file
 517        that matches other criteria, nothing is selected.
 518+
 519Also, these upper-case letters can be downcased to exclude.  E.g.
 520`--diff-filter=ad` excludes added and deleted paths.
 521+
 522Note that not all diffs can feature all types. For instance, diffs
 523from the index to the working tree can never have Added entries
 524(because the set of paths included in the diff is limited by what is in
 525the index).  Similarly, copied and renamed entries cannot appear if
 526detection for those types is disabled.
 527
 528-S<string>::
 529        Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of
 530        the specified string (i.e. addition/deletion) in a file.
 531        Intended for the scripter's use.
 532+
 533It is useful when you're looking for an exact block of code (like a
 534struct), and want to know the history of that block since it first
 535came into being: use the feature iteratively to feed the interesting
 536block in the preimage back into `-S`, and keep going until you get the
 537very first version of the block.
 538+
 539Binary files are searched as well.
 540
 541-G<regex>::
 542        Look for differences whose patch text contains added/removed
 543        lines that match <regex>.
 544+
 545To illustrate the difference between `-S<regex> --pickaxe-regex` and
 546`-G<regex>`, consider a commit with the following diff in the same
 547file:
 548+
 549----
 550+    return !regexec(regexp, two->ptr, 1, &regmatch, 0);
 551...
 552-    hit = !regexec(regexp, mf2.ptr, 1, &regmatch, 0);
 553----
 554+
 555While `git log -G"regexec\(regexp"` will show this commit, `git log
 556-S"regexec\(regexp" --pickaxe-regex` will not (because the number of
 557occurrences of that string did not change).
 558+
 559Unless `--text` is supplied patches of binary files without a textconv
 560filter will be ignored.
 561+
 562See the 'pickaxe' entry in linkgit:gitdiffcore[7] for more
 563information.
 564
 565--find-object=<object-id>::
 566        Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of
 567        the specified object. Similar to `-S`, just the argument is different
 568        in that it doesn't search for a specific string but for a specific
 569        object id.
 570+
 571The object can be a blob or a submodule commit. It implies the `-t` option in
 572`git-log` to also find trees.
 573
 574--pickaxe-all::
 575        When `-S` or `-G` finds a change, show all the changes in that
 576        changeset, not just the files that contain the change
 577        in <string>.
 578
 579--pickaxe-regex::
 580        Treat the <string> given to `-S` as an extended POSIX regular
 581        expression to match.
 582
 583endif::git-format-patch[]
 584
 585-O<orderfile>::
 586        Control the order in which files appear in the output.
 587        This overrides the `diff.orderFile` configuration variable
 588        (see linkgit:git-config[1]).  To cancel `diff.orderFile`,
 589        use `-O/dev/null`.
 590+
 591The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in
 592<orderfile>.
 593All files with pathnames that match the first pattern are output
 594first, all files with pathnames that match the second pattern (but not
 595the first) are output next, and so on.
 596All files with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output
 597last, as if there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of the
 598file.
 599If multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match the same pattern
 600but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each other is
 601the normal order.
 602+
 603<orderfile> is parsed as follows:
 604+
 605--
 606 - Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators for
 607   readability.
 608
 609 - Lines starting with a hash ("`#`") are ignored, so they can be used
 610   for comments.  Add a backslash ("`\`") to the beginning of the
 611   pattern if it starts with a hash.
 612
 613 - Each other line contains a single pattern.
 614--
 615+
 616Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
 617fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also
 618matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
 619components matches the pattern.  For example, the pattern "`foo*bar`"
 620matches "`fooasdfbar`" and "`foo/bar/baz/asdf`" but not "`foobarx`".
 621
 622ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 623-R::
 624        Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
 625        on-disk file to tree contents.
 626
 627--relative[=<path>]::
 628        When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be
 629        told to exclude changes outside the directory and show
 630        pathnames relative to it with this option.  When you are
 631        not in a subdirectory (e.g. in a bare repository), you
 632        can name which subdirectory to make the output relative
 633        to by giving a <path> as an argument.
 634endif::git-format-patch[]
 635
 636-a::
 637--text::
 638        Treat all files as text.
 639
 640--ignore-cr-at-eol::
 641        Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.
 642
 643--ignore-space-at-eol::
 644        Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
 645
 646-b::
 647--ignore-space-change::
 648        Ignore changes in amount of whitespace.  This ignores whitespace
 649        at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or
 650        more whitespace characters to be equivalent.
 651
 652-w::
 653--ignore-all-space::
 654        Ignore whitespace when comparing lines.  This ignores
 655        differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
 656        line has none.
 657
 658--ignore-blank-lines::
 659        Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
 660
 661--inter-hunk-context=<lines>::
 662        Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number
 663        of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other.
 664        Defaults to `diff.interHunkContext` or 0 if the config option
 665        is unset.
 666
 667-W::
 668--function-context::
 669        Show whole surrounding functions of changes.
 670
 671ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 672ifndef::git-log[]
 673--exit-code::
 674        Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1).
 675        That is, it exits with 1 if there were differences and
 676        0 means no differences.
 677
 678--quiet::
 679        Disable all output of the program. Implies `--exit-code`.
 680endif::git-log[]
 681endif::git-format-patch[]
 682
 683--ext-diff::
 684        Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
 685        external diff driver with linkgit:gitattributes[5], you need
 686        to use this option with linkgit:git-log[1] and friends.
 687
 688--no-ext-diff::
 689        Disallow external diff drivers.
 690
 691--textconv::
 692--no-textconv::
 693        Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run
 694        when comparing binary files. See linkgit:gitattributes[5] for
 695        details. Because textconv filters are typically a one-way
 696        conversion, the resulting diff is suitable for human
 697        consumption, but cannot be applied. For this reason, textconv
 698        filters are enabled by default only for linkgit:git-diff[1] and
 699        linkgit:git-log[1], but not for linkgit:git-format-patch[1] or
 700        diff plumbing commands.
 701
 702--ignore-submodules[=<when>]::
 703        Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
 704        either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default.
 705        Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either contains
 706        untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the commit recorded
 707        in the superproject and can be used to override any settings of the
 708        'ignore' option in linkgit:git-config[1] or linkgit:gitmodules[5]. When
 709        "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when they only
 710        contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for modified
 711        content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work tree of submodules,
 712        only changes to the commits stored in the superproject are shown (this was
 713        the behavior until 1.7.0). Using "all" hides all changes to submodules.
 714
 715--src-prefix=<prefix>::
 716        Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
 717
 718--dst-prefix=<prefix>::
 719        Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
 720
 721--no-prefix::
 722        Do not show any source or destination prefix.
 723
 724--line-prefix=<prefix>::
 725        Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.
 726
 727--ita-invisible-in-index::
 728        By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing
 729        empty file in "git diff" and a new file in "git diff --cached".
 730        This option makes the entry appear as a new file in "git diff"
 731        and non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be
 732        reverted with `--ita-visible-in-index`. Both options are
 733        experimental and could be removed in future.
 734
 735For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
 736linkgit:gitdiffcore[7].