GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS environment variables.
What the -p option produces is slightly different from the traditional
-diff format.
+diff format:
-1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header, that looks like
- this:
+1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header that looks like this:
diff --git a/file1 b/file2
+
The `a/` and `b/` filenames are the same unless rename/copy is
involved. Especially, even for a creation or a deletion,
-`/dev/null` is _not_ used in place of `a/` or `b/` filenames.
+`/dev/null` is _not_ used in place of the `a/` or `b/` filenames.
+
When rename/copy is involved, `file1` and `file2` show the
name of the source file of the rename/copy and the name of
similarity index <number>
dissimilarity index <number>
index <hash>..<hash> <mode>
-
-3. TAB, LF, double quote and backslash characters in pathnames
- are represented as `\t`, `\n`, `\"` and `\\`, respectively.
- If there is need for such substitution then the whole
- pathname is put in double quotes.
-
++
+File modes are printed as 6-digit octal numbers including the file type
+and file permission bits.
++
+Path names in extended headers do not include the `a/` and `b/` prefixes.
++
The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines, and
the dissimilarity index is the percentage of changed lines. It
is a rounded down integer, followed by a percent sign. The
similarity index value of 100% is thus reserved for two equal
files, while 100% dissimilarity means that no line from the old
file made it into the new one.
++
+The index line includes the SHA-1 checksum before and after the change.
+The <mode> is included if the file mode does not change; otherwise,
+separate lines indicate the old and the new mode.
+
+3. TAB, LF, double quote and backslash characters in pathnames
+ are represented as `\t`, `\n`, `\"` and `\\`, respectively.
+ If there is need for such substitution then the whole
+ pathname is put in double quotes.
+
+4. All the `file1` files in the output refer to files before the
+ commit, and all the `file2` files refer to files after the commit.
+ It is incorrect to apply each change to each file sequentially. For
+ example, this patch will swap a and b:
+
+ diff --git a/a b/b
+ rename from a
+ rename to b
+ diff --git a/b b/a
+ rename from b
+ rename to a
combined diff format
--------------------
-"git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff" can take '-c' or
-'--cc' option to produce 'combined diff'. For showing a merge commit
-with "git log -p", this is the default format; you can force showing
-full diff with the '-m' option.
+Any diff-generating command can take the `-c` or `--cc` option to
+produce a 'combined diff' when showing a merge. This is the default
+format when showing merges with linkgit:git-diff[1] or
+linkgit:git-show[1]. Note also that you can give the `-m' option to any
+of these commands to force generation of diffs with individual parents
+of a merge.
+
A 'combined diff' format looks like this:
------------