diff-options.txt

// Please don't remove this comment as asciidoc behaves badly when
// the first non-empty line is ifdef/ifndef. The symptom is that
// without this comment the <git-diff-core> attribute conditionally
// defined below ends up being defined unconditionally.
// Last checked with asciidoc 7.0.2.

ifndef::git-format-patch[]
ifndef::git-diff[]
ifndef::git-log[]
:git-diff-core: 1
endif::git-log[]
endif::git-diff[]
endif::git-format-patch[]

ifdef::git-format-patch[]
-p::
Generate patches without diffstat.
endif::git-format-patch[]

ifndef::git-format-patch[]
-p::
-u::
Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
{git-diff? This is the default.}
endif::git-format-patch[]

-U<n>::
--unified=<n>::
Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of
the usual three. Implies "-p".

--raw::
Generate the raw format.
{git-diff-core? This is the default.}

--patch-with-raw::
Synonym for "-p --raw".

--patience::
Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.

--stat[=width[,name-width]]::
Generate a diffstat. You can override the default
output width for 80-column terminal by "--stat=width".
The width of the filename part can be controlled by
giving another width to it separated by a comma.

--numstat::
Similar to \--stat, but shows number of added and
deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without
abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly. For
binary files, outputs two `-` instead of saying
`0 0`.

--shortstat::
Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
lines.

--dirstat[=limit]::
Output the distribution of relative amount of changes (number of lines added or
removed) for each sub-directory. Directories with changes below
a cut-off percent (3% by default) are not shown. The cut-off percent
can be set with "--dirstat=limit". Changes in a child directory is not
counted for the parent directory, unless "--cumulative" is used.

--dirstat-by-file[=limit]::
Same as --dirstat, but counts changed files instead of lines.

--summary::
Output a condensed summary of extended header information
such as creations, renames and mode changes.

--patch-with-stat::
Synonym for "-p --stat".
{git-format-patch? This is the default.}

-z::
NUL-line termination on output. This affects the --raw
output field terminator. Also output from commands such
as "git-log" will be delimited with NUL between commits.

--name-only::
Show only names of changed files.

--name-status::
Show only names and status of changed files. See the description
of the `--diff-filter` option on what the status letters mean.

--color::
Show colored diff.

--no-color::
Turn off colored diff, even when the configuration file
gives the default to color output.

--color-words[=<regex>]::
Show colored word diff, i.e., color words which have changed.
By default, words are separated by whitespace.
+
When a <regex> is specified, every non-overlapping match of the
<regex> is considered a word. Anything between these matches is
considered whitespace and ignored(!) for the purposes of finding
differences. You may want to append `|[^[:space:]]` to your regular
expression to make sure that it matches all non-whitespace characters.
A match that contains a newline is silently truncated(!) at the
newline.
+
The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration option, see
linkgit:gitattributes[1] or linkgit:git-config[1]. Giving it explicitly
overrides any diff driver or configuration setting. Diff drivers
override configuration settings.

--no-renames::
Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration
file gives the default to do so.

--check::
Warn if changes introduce trailing whitespace
or an indent that uses a space before a tab. Exits with
non-zero status if problems are found. Not compatible with
--exit-code.

--full-index::
Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full
pre- and post-image blob object names on the "index"
line when generating patch format output.

--binary::
In addition to --full-index, output "binary diff" that
can be applied with "git apply".

--abbrev[=<n>]::
Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
lines, show only a partial prefix. This is
independent of --full-index option above, which controls
the diff-patch output format. Non default number of
digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.

-B::
Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.

-M::
Detect renames.

-C::
Detect copies as well as renames. See also `--find-copies-harder`.

--diff-filter=[ACDMRTUXB*]::
Select only files that are Added (`A`), Copied (`C`),
Deleted (`D`), Modified (`M`), Renamed (`R`), have their
type (i.e. regular file, symlink, submodule, ...) changed (`T`),
are Unmerged (`U`), are
Unknown (`X`), or have had their pairing Broken (`B`).
Any combination of the filter characters may be used.
When `*` (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all
paths are selected if there is any file that matches
other criteria in the comparison; if there is no file
that matches other criteria, nothing is selected.

--find-copies-harder::
For performance reasons, by default, `-C` option finds copies only
if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
changeset. This flag makes the command
inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of
copy. This is a very expensive operation for large
projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one
`-C` option has the same effect.

-l<num>::
-M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n
is the number of potential rename/copy targets. This
option prevents rename/copy detection from running if
the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified
number.

-S<string>::
Look for differences that introduce or remove an instance of
<string>. Note that this is different than the string simply
appearing in diff output; see the 'pickaxe' entry in
linkgit:gitdiffcore[7] for more details.

--pickaxe-all::
When -S finds a change, show all the changes in that
changeset, not just the files that contain the change
in <string>.

--pickaxe-regex::
Make the <string> not a plain string but an extended POSIX
regex to match.

-O<orderfile>::
Output the patch in the order specified in the
<orderfile>, which has one shell glob pattern per line.

-R::
Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
on-disk file to tree contents.

--relative[=<path>]::
When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be
told to exclude changes outside the directory and show
pathnames relative to it with this option. When you are
not in a subdirectory (e.g. in a bare repository), you
can name which subdirectory to make the output relative
to by giving a <path> as an argument.

-a::
--text::
Treat all files as text.

--ignore-space-at-eol::
Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.

-b::
--ignore-space-change::
Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace
at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or
more whitespace characters to be equivalent.

-w::
--ignore-all-space::
Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores
differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
line has none.

--inter-hunk-context=<lines>::
Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number
of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other.

--exit-code::
Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1).
That is, it exits with 1 if there were differences and
0 means no differences.

--quiet::
Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.

--ext-diff::
Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
external diff driver with linkgit:gitattributes[5], you need
to use this option with linkgit:git-log[1] and friends.

--no-ext-diff::
Disallow external diff drivers.

--ignore-submodules::
Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation.

--src-prefix=<prefix>::
Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".

--dst-prefix=<prefix>::
Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".

--no-prefix::
Do not show any source or destination prefix.

For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
linkgit:gitdiffcore[7].