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TLDR: git-diff-tree (tldr-pages)

Compares the content and mode of blobs found via two tree objects.

  • Compare two tree objects
    git diff-tree {{tree-ish1}} {{tree-ish2}}
  • Show changes between two specific commits
    git diff-tree -r {{commit1}} {{commit2}}
  • Display changes in patch format
    git diff-tree {{-p|--patch}} {{tree-ish1}} {{tree-ish2}}
  • Filter changes by a specific path
    git diff-tree {{tree-ish1}} {{tree-ish2}} -- {{path/to/file_or_directory}}
git-diff-tree(1)
NAME SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION OPTIONS PRETTY FORMATS RAW OUTPUT FORMAT DIFF FORMAT FOR MERGES GENERATING PATCH TEXT WITH -P COMBINED DIFF FORMAT OTHER DIFF FORMATS GIT
GIT-DIFF-TREE(1)                             Git Manual                             GIT-DIFF-TREE(1)



NAME
       git-diff-tree - Compares the content and mode of blobs found via two tree objects

SYNOPSIS
       git diff-tree [--stdin] [-m] [-s] [-v] [--no-commit-id] [--pretty]
                     [-t] [-r] [-c | --cc] [--combined-all-paths] [--root] [--merge-base]
                     [<common diff options>] <tree-ish> [<tree-ish>] [<path>...]


DESCRIPTION
       Compares the content and mode of the blobs found via two tree objects.

       If there is only one <tree-ish> given, the commit is compared with its parents (see --stdin
       below).

       Note that git diff-tree can use the tree encapsulated in a commit object.

OPTIONS
       -p, -u, --patch
           Generate patch (see section on generating patches).

       -s, --no-patch
           Suppress diff output. Useful for commands like git show that show the patch by default,
           or to cancel the effect of --patch.

       -U<n>, --unified=<n>
           Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual three. Implies --patch.

       --output=<file>
           Output to a specific file instead of stdout.

       --output-indicator-new=<char>, --output-indicator-old=<char>,
       --output-indicator-context=<char>
           Specify the character used to indicate new, old or context lines in the generated patch.
           Normally they are +, - and ' ' respectively.

       --raw
           Generate the diff in raw format. This is the default.

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

       --indent-heuristic
           Enable the heuristic that shifts diff hunk boundaries to make patches easier to read.
           This is the default.

       --no-indent-heuristic
           Disable the indent heuristic.

       --minimal
           Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is produced.

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

       --histogram
           Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.

       --anchored=<text>
           Generate a diff using the "anchored diff" algorithm.

           This option may be specified more than once.

           If a line exists in both the source and destination, exists only once, and starts with
           this text, this algorithm attempts to prevent it from appearing as a deletion or addition
           in the output. It uses the "patience diff" algorithm internally.

       --diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}
           Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:

           default, myers
               The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the default.

           minimal
               Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is produced.

           patience
               Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.

           histogram
               This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support low-occurrence common
               elements".

           For instance, if you configured the diff.algorithm variable to a non-default value and
           want to use the default one, then you have to use --diff-algorithm=default option.

       --stat[=<width>[,<name-width>[,<count>]]]
           Generate a diffstat. By default, as much space as necessary will be used for the filename
           part, and the rest for the graph part. Maximum width defaults to terminal width, or 80
           columns if not connected to a terminal, and can be overridden by <width>. The width of
           the filename part can be limited by giving another width <name-width> after a comma. The
           width of the graph part can be limited by using --stat-graph-width=<width> (affects all
           commands generating a stat graph) or by setting diff.statGraphWidth=<width> (does not
           affect git format-patch). By giving a third parameter <count>, you can limit the output
           to the first <count> lines, followed by ...  if there are more.

           These parameters can also be set individually with --stat-width=<width>,
           --stat-name-width=<name-width> and --stat-count=<count>.

       --compact-summary
           Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as file creations or
           deletions ("new" or "gone", optionally "+l" if it’s a symlink) and mode changes ("+x" or
           "-x" for adding or removing executable bit respectively) in diffstat. The information is
           put between the filename part and the graph part. Implies --stat.

       --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.

       -X[<param1,param2,...>], --dirstat[=<param1,param2,...>]
           Output the distribution of relative amount of changes for each sub-directory. The
           behavior of --dirstat can be customized by passing it a comma separated list of
           parameters. The defaults are controlled by the diff.dirstat configuration variable (see
           git-config(1)). The following parameters are available:

           changes
               Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have been removed from the
               source, or added to the destination. This ignores the amount of pure code movements
               within a file. In other words, rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much as
               other changes. This is the default behavior when no parameter is given.

           lines
               Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based diff analysis, and
               summing the removed/added line counts. (For binary files, count 64-byte chunks
               instead, since binary files have no natural concept of lines). This is a more
               expensive --dirstat behavior than the changes behavior, but it does count rearranged
               lines within a file as much as other changes. The resulting output is consistent with
               what you get from the other --*stat options.

           files
               Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files changed. Each changed
               file counts equally in the dirstat analysis. This is the computationally cheapest
               --dirstat behavior, since it does not have to look at the file contents at all.

           cumulative
               Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory as well. Note that when
               using cumulative, the sum of the percentages reported may exceed 100%. The default
               (non-cumulative) behavior can be specified with the noncumulative parameter.

           <limit>
               An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by default). Directories
               contributing less than this percentage of the changes are not shown in the output.

           Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring directories with less
           than 10% of the total amount of changed files, and accumulating child directory counts in
           the parent directories: --dirstat=files,10,cumulative.

       --cumulative
           Synonym for --dirstat=cumulative

       --dirstat-by-file[=<param1,param2>...]
           Synonym for --dirstat=files,param1,param2...

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

       --patch-with-stat
           Synonym for -p --stat.

       -z
           When --raw, --numstat, --name-only or --name-status has been given, do not munge
           pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.

           Without this option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the
           configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).

       --name-only
           Show only names of changed files. The file names are often encoded in UTF-8. For more
           information see the discussion about encoding in the git-log(1) manual page.

       --name-status
           Show only names and status of changed files. See the description of the --diff-filter
           option on what the status letters mean. Just like --name-only the file names are often
           encoded in UTF-8.

       --submodule[=<format>]
           Specify how differences in submodules are shown. When specifying --submodule=short the
           short format is used. This format just shows the names of the commits at the beginning
           and end of the range. When --submodule or --submodule=log is specified, the log format is
           used. This format lists the commits in the range like git-submodule(1) summary does. When
           --submodule=diff is specified, the diff format is used. This format shows an inline diff
           of the changes in the submodule contents between the commit range. Defaults to
           diff.submodule or the short format if the config option is unset.

       --color[=<when>]
           Show colored diff.  --color (i.e. without =<when>) is the same as --color=always.  <when>
           can be one of always, never, or auto.

       --no-color
           Turn off colored diff. It is the same as --color=never.

       --color-moved[=<mode>]
           Moved lines of code are colored differently. The <mode> defaults to no if the option is
           not given and to zebra if the option with no mode is given. The mode must be one of:

           no
               Moved lines are not highlighted.

           default
               Is a synonym for zebra. This may change to a more sensible mode in the future.

           plain
               Any line that is added in one location and was removed in another location will be
               colored with color.diff.newMoved. Similarly color.diff.oldMoved will be used for
               removed lines that are added somewhere else in the diff. This mode picks up any moved
               line, but it is not very useful in a review to determine if a block of code was moved
               without permutation.

           blocks
               Blocks of moved text of at least 20 alphanumeric characters are detected greedily.
               The detected blocks are painted using either the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color.
               Adjacent blocks cannot be told apart.

           zebra
               Blocks of moved text are detected as in blocks mode. The blocks are painted using
               either the color.diff.{old,new}Moved color or color.diff.{old,new}MovedAlternative.
               The change between the two colors indicates that a new block was detected.

           dimmed-zebra
               Similar to zebra, but additional dimming of uninteresting parts of moved code is
               performed. The bordering lines of two adjacent blocks are considered interesting, the
               rest is uninteresting.  dimmed_zebra is a deprecated synonym.

       --no-color-moved
           Turn off move detection. This can be used to override configuration settings. It is the
           same as --color-moved=no.

       --color-moved-ws=<modes>
           This configures how whitespace is ignored when performing the move detection for
           --color-moved. These modes can be given as a comma separated list:

           no
               Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection.

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

           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.

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

           allow-indentation-change
               Initially ignore any whitespace in the move detection, then group the moved code
               blocks only into a block if the change in whitespace is the same per line. This is
               incompatible with the other modes.

       --no-color-moved-ws
           Do not ignore whitespace when performing move detection. This can be used to override
           configuration settings. It is the same as --color-moved-ws=no.

       --word-diff[=<mode>]
           Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words. By default, words are
           delimited by whitespace; see --word-diff-regex below. The <mode> defaults to plain, and
           must be one of:

           color
               Highlight changed words using only colors. Implies --color.

           plain
               Show words as [-removed-] and {+added+}. Makes no attempts to escape the delimiters
               if they appear in the input, so the output may be ambiguous.

           porcelain
               Use a special line-based format intended for script consumption.
               Added/removed/unchanged runs are printed in the usual unified diff format, starting
               with a +/-/` ` character at the beginning of the line and extending to the end of the
               line. Newlines in the input are represented by a tilde ~ on a line of its own.

           none
               Disable word diff again.

           Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to highlight the changed
           parts in all modes if enabled.

       --word-diff-regex=<regex>
           Use <regex> to decide what a word is, instead of considering runs of non-whitespace to be
           a word. Also implies --word-diff unless it was already enabled.

           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.

           For example, --word-diff-regex=.  will treat each character as a word and,
           correspondingly, show differences character by character.

           The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration option, see gitattributes(5)
           or git-config(1). Giving it explicitly overrides any diff driver or configuration
           setting. Diff drivers override configuration settings.

       --color-words[=<regex>]
           Equivalent to --word-diff=color plus (if a regex was specified)
           --word-diff-regex=<regex>.

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

       --[no-]rename-empty
           Whether to use empty blobs as rename source.

       --check
           Warn if changes introduce conflict markers or whitespace errors. What are considered
           whitespace errors is controlled by core.whitespace configuration. By default, trailing
           whitespaces (including lines that consist solely of whitespaces) and a space character
           that is immediately followed by a tab character inside the initial indent of the line are
           considered whitespace errors. Exits with non-zero status if problems are found. Not
           compatible with --exit-code.

       --ws-error-highlight=<kind>
           Highlight whitespace errors in the context, old or new lines of the diff. Multiple values
           are separated by comma, none resets previous values, default reset the list to new and
           all is a shorthand for old,new,context. When this option is not given, and the
           configuration variable diff.wsErrorHighlight is not set, only whitespace errors in new
           lines are highlighted. The whitespace errors are colored with color.diff.whitespace.

       --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 a binary diff that can be applied with git-apply.
           Implies --patch.

       --abbrev[=<n>]
           Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in diff-raw format output and
           diff-tree header lines, show the shortest prefix that is at least <n> hexdigits long that
           uniquely refers the object. In diff-patch output format, --full-index takes higher
           precedence, i.e. if --full-index is specified, full blob names will be shown regardless
           of --abbrev. Non default number of digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.

       -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
           Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create. This serves two purposes:

           It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a file not as a series of
           deletion and insertion mixed together with a very few lines that happen to match
           textually as the context, but as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
           insertion of everything new, and the number m controls this aspect of the -B option
           (defaults to 60%).  -B/70% specifies that less than 30% of the original should remain in
           the result for Git to consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch
           will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).

           When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as the source of a rename
           (usually -M only considers a file that disappeared as the source of a rename), and the
           number n controls this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%).  -B20% specifies that a
           change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of the file’s size are eligible
           for being picked up as a possible source of a rename to another file.

       -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
           Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a threshold on the similarity index (i.e. amount
           of addition/deletions compared to the file’s size). For example, -M90% means Git should
           consider a delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t changed.
           Without a % sign, the number is to be read as a fraction, with a decimal point before it.
           I.e., -M5 becomes 0.5, and is thus the same as -M50%. Similarly, -M05 is the same as
           -M5%. To limit detection to exact renames, use -M100%. The default similarity index is
           50%.

       -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
           Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder. If n is specified, it
           has the same meaning as for -M<n>.

       --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.

       -D, --irreversible-delete
           Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not the diff between the
           preimage and /dev/null. The resulting patch is not meant to be applied with patch or git
           apply; this is solely for people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after
           the change. In addition, the output obviously lacks enough information to apply such a
           patch in reverse, even manually, hence the name of the option.

           When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion part of a
           delete/create pair.

       -l<num>
           The -M and -C options involve some preliminary steps that can detect subsets of
           renames/copies cheaply, followed by an exhaustive fallback portion that compares all
           remaining unpaired destinations to all relevant sources. (For renames, only remaining
           unpaired sources are relevant; for copies, all original sources are relevant.) For N
           sources and destinations, this exhaustive check is O(N^2). This option prevents the
           exhaustive portion of rename/copy detection from running if the number of
           source/destination files involved exceeds the specified number. Defaults to
           diff.renameLimit. Note that a value of 0 is treated as unlimited.

       --diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]
           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 (including none) can 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.

           Also, these upper-case letters can be downcased to exclude. E.g.  --diff-filter=ad
           excludes added and deleted paths.

           Note that not all diffs can feature all types. For instance, diffs from the index to the
           working tree can never have Added entries (because the set of paths included in the diff
           is limited by what is in the index). Similarly, copied and renamed entries cannot appear
           if detection for those types is disabled.

       -S<string>
           Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the specified string (i.e.
           addition/deletion) in a file. Intended for the scripter’s use.

           It is useful when you’re looking for an exact block of code (like a struct), and want to
           know the history of that block since it first came into being: use the feature
           iteratively to feed the interesting block in the preimage back into -S, and keep going
           until you get the very first version of the block.

           Binary files are searched as well.

       -G<regex>
           Look for differences whose patch text contains added/removed lines that match <regex>.

           To illustrate the difference between -S<regex> --pickaxe-regex and -G<regex>, consider a
           commit with the following diff in the same file:

               +    return frotz(nitfol, two->ptr, 1, 0);
               ...
               -    hit = frotz(nitfol, mf2.ptr, 1, 0);

           While git log -G"frotz\(nitfol" will show this commit, git log -S"frotz\(nitfol"
           --pickaxe-regex will not (because the number of occurrences of that string did not
           change).

           Unless --text is supplied patches of binary files without a textconv filter will be
           ignored.

           See the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7) for more information.

       --find-object=<object-id>
           Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the specified object.
           Similar to -S, just the argument is different in that it doesn’t search for a specific
           string but for a specific object id.

           The object can be a blob or a submodule commit. It implies the -t option in git-log to
           also find trees.

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

       --pickaxe-regex
           Treat the <string> given to -S as an extended POSIX regular expression to match.

       -O<orderfile>
           Control the order in which files appear in the output. This overrides the diff.orderFile
           configuration variable (see git-config(1)). To cancel diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.

           The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in <orderfile>. All files
           with pathnames that match the first pattern are output first, all files with pathnames
           that match the second pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on. All files
           with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output last, as if there was an implicit
           match-all pattern at the end of the file. If multiple pathnames have the same rank (they
           match the same pattern but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each
           other is the normal order.

           <orderfile> is parsed as follows:

           •   Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators for readability.

           •   Lines starting with a hash ("#") are ignored, so they can be used for comments. Add a
               backslash ("\") to the beginning of the pattern if it starts with a hash.

           •   Each other line contains a single pattern.

           Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for fnmatch(3) without the
           FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also matches a pattern if removing any number of the
           final pathname components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern "foo*bar" matches
           "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not "foobarx".

       --skip-to=<file>, --rotate-to=<file>
           Discard the files before the named <file> from the output (i.e.  skip to), or move them
           to the end of the output (i.e.  rotate to). These were invented primarily for use of the
           git difftool command, and may not be very useful otherwise.

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

       --relative[=<path>], --no-relative
           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.  --no-relative can be used to
           countermand both diff.relative config option and previous --relative.

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

       --ignore-cr-at-eol
           Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.

       --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.

       --ignore-blank-lines
           Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.

       -I<regex>, --ignore-matching-lines=<regex>
           Ignore changes whose all lines match <regex>. This option may be specified more than
           once.

       --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. Defaults to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config
           option is unset.

       -W, --function-context
           Show whole function as context lines for each change. The function names are determined
           in the same way as git diff works out patch hunk headers (see Defining a custom
           hunk-header in gitattributes(5)).

       --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
           gitattributes(5), you need to use this option with git-log(1) and friends.

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

       --textconv, --no-textconv
           Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run when comparing binary
           files. See gitattributes(5) for details. Because textconv filters are typically a one-way
           conversion, the resulting diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied.
           For this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for git-diff(1) and git-
           log(1), but not for git-format-patch(1) or diff plumbing commands.

       --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
           Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be either "none",
           "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default. Using "none" will consider the
           submodule modified when it either contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD
           differs from the commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any
           settings of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5). When "untracked" is used
           submodules are not considered dirty when they only contain untracked content (but they
           are still scanned for modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work
           tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the superproject are shown
           (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using "all" hides all changes to submodules.

       --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.

       --line-prefix=<prefix>
           Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.

       --ita-invisible-in-index
           By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing empty file in "git diff"
           and a new file in "git diff --cached". This option makes the entry appear as a new file
           in "git diff" and non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be reverted with
           --ita-visible-in-index. Both options are experimental and could be removed in future.

       For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also gitdiffcore(7).

       <tree-ish>
           The id of a tree object.

       <path>...
           If provided, the results are limited to a subset of files matching one of the provided
           pathspecs.

       -r
           recurse into sub-trees

       -t
           show tree entry itself as well as subtrees. Implies -r.

       --root
           When --root is specified the initial commit will be shown as a big creation event. This
           is equivalent to a diff against the NULL tree.

       --merge-base
           Instead of comparing the <tree-ish>s directly, use the merge base between the two
           <tree-ish>s as the "before" side. There must be two <tree-ish>s given and they must both
           be commits.

       --stdin
           When --stdin is specified, the command does not take <tree-ish> arguments from the
           command line. Instead, it reads lines containing either two <tree>, one <commit>, or a
           list of <commit> from its standard input. (Use a single space as separator.)

           When two trees are given, it compares the first tree with the second. When a single
           commit is given, it compares the commit with its parents. The remaining commits, when
           given, are used as if they are parents of the first commit.

           When comparing two trees, the ID of both trees (separated by a space and terminated by a
           newline) is printed before the difference. When comparing commits, the ID of the first
           (or only) commit, followed by a newline, is printed.

           The following flags further affect the behavior when comparing commits (but not trees).

       -m
           By default, git diff-tree --stdin does not show differences for merge commits. With this
           flag, it shows differences to that commit from all of its parents. See also -c.

       -s
           By default, git diff-tree --stdin shows differences, either in machine-readable form
           (without -p) or in patch form (with -p). This output can be suppressed. It is only useful
           with -v flag.

       -v
           This flag causes git diff-tree --stdin to also show the commit message before the
           differences.

       --pretty[=<format>], --format=<format>
           Pretty-print the contents of the commit logs in a given format, where <format> can be one
           of oneline, short, medium, full, fuller, reference, email, raw, format:<string> and
           tformat:<string>. When <format> is none of the above, and has %placeholder in it, it acts
           as if --pretty=tformat:<format> were given.

           See the "PRETTY FORMATS" section for some additional details for each format. When
           =<format> part is omitted, it defaults to medium.

           Note: you can specify the default pretty format in the repository configuration (see git-
           config(1)).

       --abbrev-commit
           Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal commit object name, show a prefix that
           names the object uniquely. "--abbrev=<n>" (which also modifies diff output, if it is
           displayed) option can be used to specify the minimum length of the prefix.

           This should make "--pretty=oneline" a whole lot more readable for people using 80-column
           terminals.

       --no-abbrev-commit
           Show the full 40-byte hexadecimal commit object name. This negates --abbrev-commit,
           either explicit or implied by other options such as "--oneline". It also overrides the
           log.abbrevCommit variable.

       --oneline
           This is a shorthand for "--pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit" used together.

       --encoding=<encoding>
           Commit objects record the character encoding used for the log message in their encoding
           header; this option can be used to tell the command to re-code the commit log message in
           the encoding preferred by the user. For non plumbing commands this defaults to UTF-8.
           Note that if an object claims to be encoded in X and we are outputting in X, we will
           output the object verbatim; this means that invalid sequences in the original commit may
           be copied to the output. Likewise, if iconv(3) fails to convert the commit, we will
           quietly output the original object verbatim.

       --expand-tabs=<n>, --expand-tabs, --no-expand-tabs
           Perform a tab expansion (replace each tab with enough spaces to fill to the next display
           column that is multiple of <n>) in the log message before showing it in the output.
           --expand-tabs is a short-hand for --expand-tabs=8, and --no-expand-tabs is a short-hand
           for --expand-tabs=0, which disables tab expansion.

           By default, tabs are expanded in pretty formats that indent the log message by 4 spaces
           (i.e.  medium, which is the default, full, and fuller).

       --notes[=<ref>]
           Show the notes (see git-notes(1)) that annotate the commit, when showing the commit log
           message. This is the default for git log, git show and git whatchanged commands when
           there is no --pretty, --format, or --oneline option given on the command line.

           By default, the notes shown are from the notes refs listed in the core.notesRef and
           notes.displayRef variables (or corresponding environment overrides). See git-config(1)
           for more details.

           With an optional <ref> argument, use the ref to find the notes to display. The ref can
           specify the full refname when it begins with refs/notes/; when it begins with notes/,
           refs/ and otherwise refs/notes/ is prefixed to form a full name of the ref.

           Multiple --notes options can be combined to control which notes are being displayed.
           Examples: "--notes=foo" will show only notes from "refs/notes/foo"; "--notes=foo --notes"
           will show both notes from "refs/notes/foo" and from the default notes ref(s).

       --no-notes
           Do not show notes. This negates the above --notes option, by resetting the list of notes
           refs from which notes are shown. Options are parsed in the order given on the command
           line, so e.g. "--notes --notes=foo --no-notes --notes=bar" will only show notes from
           "refs/notes/bar".

       --show-notes[=<ref>], --[no-]standard-notes
           These options are deprecated. Use the above --notes/--no-notes options instead.

       --show-signature
           Check the validity of a signed commit object by passing the signature to gpg --verify and
           show the output.

       --no-commit-id
           git diff-tree outputs a line with the commit ID when applicable. This flag suppressed the
           commit ID output.

       -c
           This flag changes the way a merge commit is displayed (which means it is useful only when
           the command is given one <tree-ish>, or --stdin). It shows the differences from each of
           the parents to the merge result simultaneously instead of showing pairwise diff between a
           parent and the result one at a time (which is what the -m option does). Furthermore, it
           lists only files which were modified from all parents.

       --cc
           This flag changes the way a merge commit patch is displayed, in a similar way to the -c
           option. It implies the -c and -p options and further compresses the patch output by
           omitting uninteresting hunks whose the contents in the parents have only two variants and
           the merge result picks one of them without modification. When all hunks are
           uninteresting, the commit itself and the commit log message is not shown, just like in
           any other "empty diff" case.

       --combined-all-paths
           This flag causes combined diffs (used for merge commits) to list the name of the file
           from all parents. It thus only has effect when -c or --cc are specified, and is likely
           only useful if filename changes are detected (i.e. when either rename or copy detection
           have been requested).

       --always
           Show the commit itself and the commit log message even if the diff itself is empty.

PRETTY FORMATS
       If the commit is a merge, and if the pretty-format is not oneline, email or raw, an
       additional line is inserted before the Author: line. This line begins with "Merge: " and the
       hashes of ancestral commits are printed, separated by spaces. Note that the listed commits
       may not necessarily be the list of the direct parent commits if you have limited your view of
       history: for example, if you are only interested in changes related to a certain directory or
       file.

       There are several built-in formats, and you can define additional formats by setting a
       pretty.<name> config option to either another format name, or a format: string, as described
       below (see git-config(1)). Here are the details of the built-in formats:

       •   oneline

               <hash> <title line>

           This is designed to be as compact as possible.

       •   short

               commit <hash>
               Author: <author>

               <title line>

       •   medium

               commit <hash>
               Author: <author>
               Date:   <author date>

               <title line>

               <full commit message>

       •   full

               commit <hash>
               Author: <author>
               Commit: <committer>

               <title line>

               <full commit message>

       •   fuller

               commit <hash>
               Author:     <author>
               AuthorDate: <author date>
               Commit:     <committer>
               CommitDate: <committer date>

               <title line>

               <full commit message>

       •   reference

               <abbrev hash> (<title line>, <short author date>)

           This format is used to refer to another commit in a commit message and is the same as
           --pretty='format:%C(auto)%h (%s, %ad)'. By default, the date is formatted with
           --date=short unless another --date option is explicitly specified. As with any format:
           with format placeholders, its output is not affected by other options like --decorate and
           --walk-reflogs.

       •   email

               From <hash> <date>
               From: <author>
               Date: <author date>
               Subject: [PATCH] <title line>

               <full commit message>

       •   mboxrd

           Like email, but lines in the commit message starting with "From " (preceded by zero or
           more ">") are quoted with ">" so they aren’t confused as starting a new commit.

       •   raw

           The raw format shows the entire commit exactly as stored in the commit object. Notably,
           the hashes are displayed in full, regardless of whether --abbrev or --no-abbrev are used,
           and parents information show the true parent commits, without taking grafts or history
           simplification into account. Note that this format affects the way commits are displayed,
           but not the way the diff is shown e.g. with git log --raw. To get full object names in a
           raw diff format, use --no-abbrev.

       •   format:<string>

           The format:<string> format allows you to specify which information you want to show. It
           works a little bit like printf format, with the notable exception that you get a newline
           with %n instead of \n.

           E.g, format:"The author of %h was %an, %ar%nThe title was >>%s<<%n" would show something
           like this:

               The author of fe6e0ee was Junio C Hamano, 23 hours ago
               The title was >>t4119: test autocomputing -p<n> for traditional diff input.<<

           The placeholders are:

           •   Placeholders that expand to a single literal character:

               %n
                   newline

               %%
                   a raw %

               %x00
                   print a byte from a hex code

           •   Placeholders that affect formatting of later placeholders:

               %Cred
                   switch color to red

               %Cgreen
                   switch color to green

               %Cblue
                   switch color to blue

               %Creset
                   reset color

               %C(...)
                   color specification, as described under Values in the "CONFIGURATION FILE"
                   section of git-config(1). By default, colors are shown only when enabled for log
                   output (by color.diff, color.ui, or --color, and respecting the auto settings of
                   the former if we are going to a terminal).  %C(auto,...)  is accepted as a
                   historical synonym for the default (e.g., %C(auto,red)). Specifying
                   %C(always,...)  will show the colors even when color is not otherwise enabled
                   (though consider just using --color=always to enable color for the whole output,
                   including this format and anything else git might color).  auto alone (i.e.
                   %C(auto)) will turn on auto coloring on the next placeholders until the color is
                   switched again.

               %m
                   left (<), right (>) or boundary (-) mark

               %w([<w>[,<i1>[,<i2>]]])
                   switch line wrapping, like the -w option of git-shortlog(1).

               %<(<N>[,trunc|ltrunc|mtrunc])
                   make the next placeholder take at least N columns, padding spaces on the right if
                   necessary. Optionally truncate at the beginning (ltrunc), the middle (mtrunc) or
                   the end (trunc) if the output is longer than N columns. Note that truncating only
                   works correctly with N >= 2.

               %<|(<N>)
                   make the next placeholder take at least until Nth columns, padding spaces on the
                   right if necessary

               %>(<N>), %>|(<N>)
                   similar to %<(<N>), %<|(<N>) respectively, but padding spaces on the left

               %>>(<N>), %>>|(<N>)
                   similar to %>(<N>), %>|(<N>) respectively, except that if the next placeholder
                   takes more spaces than given and there are spaces on its left, use those spaces

               %><(<N>), %><|(<N>)
                   similar to %<(<N>), %<|(<N>) respectively, but padding both sides (i.e. the text
                   is centered)

           •   Placeholders that expand to information extracted from the commit:

               %H
                   commit hash

               %h
                   abbreviated commit hash

               %T
                   tree hash

               %t
                   abbreviated tree hash

               %P
                   parent hashes

               %p
                   abbreviated parent hashes

               %an
                   author name

               %aN
                   author name (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or git-blame(1))

               %ae
                   author email

               %aE
                   author email (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or git-blame(1))

               %al
                   author email local-part (the part before the @ sign)

               %aL
                   author local-part (see %al) respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or git-
                   blame(1))

               %ad
                   author date (format respects --date= option)

               %aD
                   author date, RFC2822 style

               %ar
                   author date, relative

               %at
                   author date, UNIX timestamp

               %ai
                   author date, ISO 8601-like format

               %aI
                   author date, strict ISO 8601 format

               %as
                   author date, short format (YYYY-MM-DD)

               %ah
                   author date, human style (like the --date=human option of git-rev-list(1))

               %cn
                   committer name

               %cN
                   committer name (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or git-blame(1))

               %ce
                   committer email

               %cE
                   committer email (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or git-blame(1))

               %cl
                   committer email local-part (the part before the @ sign)

               %cL
                   committer local-part (see %cl) respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or git-
                   blame(1))

               %cd
                   committer date (format respects --date= option)

               %cD
                   committer date, RFC2822 style

               %cr
                   committer date, relative

               %ct
                   committer date, UNIX timestamp

               %ci
                   committer date, ISO 8601-like format

               %cI
                   committer date, strict ISO 8601 format

               %cs
                   committer date, short format (YYYY-MM-DD)

               %ch
                   committer date, human style (like the --date=human option of git-rev-list(1))

               %d
                   ref names, like the --decorate option of git-log(1)

               %D
                   ref names without the " (", ")" wrapping.

               %(describe[:options])
                   human-readable name, like git-describe(1); empty string for undescribable
                   commits. The describe string may be followed by a colon and zero or more
                   comma-separated options. Descriptions can be inconsistent when tags are added or
                   removed at the same time.

                   •   match=<pattern>: Only consider tags matching the given glob(7) pattern,
                       excluding the "refs/tags/" prefix.

                   •   exclude=<pattern>: Do not consider tags matching the given glob(7) pattern,
                       excluding the "refs/tags/" prefix.

               %S
                   ref name given on the command line by which the commit was reached (like git log
                   --source), only works with git log

               %e
                   encoding

               %s
                   subject

               %f
                   sanitized subject line, suitable for a filename

               %b
                   body

               %B
                   raw body (unwrapped subject and body)

               %N
                   commit notes

               %GG
                   raw verification message from GPG for a signed commit

               %G?
                   show "G" for a good (valid) signature, "B" for a bad signature, "U" for a good
                   signature with unknown validity, "X" for a good signature that has expired, "Y"
                   for a good signature made by an expired key, "R" for a good signature made by a
                   revoked key, "E" if the signature cannot be checked (e.g. missing key) and "N"
                   for no signature

               %GS
                   show the name of the signer for a signed commit

               %GK
                   show the key used to sign a signed commit

               %GF
                   show the fingerprint of the key used to sign a signed commit

               %GP
                   show the fingerprint of the primary key whose subkey was used to sign a signed
                   commit

               %GT
                   show the trust level for the key used to sign a signed commit

               %gD
                   reflog selector, e.g., refs/stash@{1} or refs/stash@{2 minutes ago}; the format
                   follows the rules described for the -g option. The portion before the @ is the
                   refname as given on the command line (so git log -g refs/heads/master would yield
                   refs/heads/master@{0}).

               %gd
                   shortened reflog selector; same as %gD, but the refname portion is shortened for
                   human readability (so refs/heads/master becomes just master).

               %gn
                   reflog identity name

               %gN
                   reflog identity name (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or git-blame(1))

               %ge
                   reflog identity email

               %gE
                   reflog identity email (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or git-blame(1))

               %gs
                   reflog subject

               %(trailers[:options])
                   display the trailers of the body as interpreted by git-interpret-trailers(1). The
                   trailers string may be followed by a colon and zero or more comma-separated
                   options. If any option is provided multiple times the last occurrence wins.

                   The boolean options accept an optional value [=<BOOL>]. The values true, false,
                   on, off etc. are all accepted. See the "boolean" sub-section in "EXAMPLES" in
                   git-config(1). If a boolean option is given with no value, it’s enabled.

                   •   key=<K>: only show trailers with specified key. Matching is done
                       case-insensitively and trailing colon is optional. If option is given
                       multiple times trailer lines matching any of the keys are shown. This option
                       automatically enables the only option so that non-trailer lines in the
                       trailer block are hidden. If that is not desired it can be disabled with
                       only=false. E.g., %(trailers:key=Reviewed-by) shows trailer lines with key
                       Reviewed-by.

                   •   only[=<BOOL>]: select whether non-trailer lines from the trailer block should
                       be included.

                   •   separator=<SEP>: specify a separator inserted between trailer lines. When
                       this option is not given each trailer line is terminated with a line feed
                       character. The string SEP may contain the literal formatting codes described
                       above. To use comma as separator one must use %x2C as it would otherwise be
                       parsed as next option. E.g., %(trailers:key=Ticket,separator=%x2C ) shows all
                       trailer lines whose key is "Ticket" separated by a comma and a space.

                   •   unfold[=<BOOL>]: make it behave as if interpret-trailer’s --unfold option was
                       given. E.g., %(trailers:only,unfold=true) unfolds and shows all trailer
                       lines.

                   •   keyonly[=<BOOL>]: only show the key part of the trailer.

                   •   valueonly[=<BOOL>]: only show the value part of the trailer.

                   •   key_value_separator=<SEP>: specify a separator inserted between trailer
                       lines. When this option is not given each trailer key-value pair is separated
                       by ": ". Otherwise it shares the same semantics as separator=<SEP> above.

           Note
           Some placeholders may depend on other options given to the revision traversal engine. For
           example, the %g* reflog options will insert an empty string unless we are traversing
           reflog entries (e.g., by git log -g). The %d and %D placeholders will use the "short"
           decoration format if --decorate was not already provided on the command line.

       If you add a + (plus sign) after % of a placeholder, a line-feed is inserted immediately
       before the expansion if and only if the placeholder expands to a non-empty string.

       If you add a - (minus sign) after % of a placeholder, all consecutive line-feeds immediately
       preceding the expansion are deleted if and only if the placeholder expands to an empty
       string.

       If you add a ` ` (space) after % of a placeholder, a space is inserted immediately before the
       expansion if and only if the placeholder expands to a non-empty string.

       •   tformat:

           The tformat: format works exactly like format:, except that it provides "terminator"
           semantics instead of "separator" semantics. In other words, each commit has the message
           terminator character (usually a newline) appended, rather than a separator placed between
           entries. This means that the final entry of a single-line format will be properly
           terminated with a new line, just as the "oneline" format does. For example:

               $ git log -2 --pretty=format:%h 4da45bef \
                 | perl -pe '$_ .= " -- NO NEWLINE\n" unless /\n/'
               4da45be
               7134973 -- NO NEWLINE

               $ git log -2 --pretty=tformat:%h 4da45bef \
                 | perl -pe '$_ .= " -- NO NEWLINE\n" unless /\n/'
               4da45be
               7134973

           In addition, any unrecognized string that has a % in it is interpreted as if it has
           tformat: in front of it. For example, these two are equivalent:

               $ git log -2 --pretty=tformat:%h 4da45bef
               $ git log -2 --pretty=%h 4da45bef


RAW OUTPUT FORMAT
       The raw output format from "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git diff
       --raw" are very similar.

       These commands all compare two sets of things; what is compared differs:

       git-diff-index <tree-ish>
           compares the <tree-ish> and the files on the filesystem.

       git-diff-index --cached <tree-ish>
           compares the <tree-ish> and the index.

       git-diff-tree [-r] <tree-ish-1> <tree-ish-2> [<pattern>...]
           compares the trees named by the two arguments.

       git-diff-files [<pattern>...]
           compares the index and the files on the filesystem.

       The "git-diff-tree" command begins its output by printing the hash of what is being compared.
       After that, all the commands print one output line per changed file.

       An output line is formatted this way:

           in-place edit  :100644 100644 bcd1234 0123456 M file0
           copy-edit      :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 C68 file1 file2
           rename-edit    :100644 100644 abcd123 1234567 R86 file1 file3
           create         :000000 100644 0000000 1234567 A file4
           delete         :100644 000000 1234567 0000000 D file5
           unmerged       :000000 000000 0000000 0000000 U file6


       That is, from the left to the right:

        1. a colon.

        2. mode for "src"; 000000 if creation or unmerged.

        3. a space.

        4. mode for "dst"; 000000 if deletion or unmerged.

        5. a space.

        6. sha1 for "src"; 0{40} if creation or unmerged.

        7. a space.

        8. sha1 for "dst"; 0{40} if creation, unmerged or "look at work tree".

        9. a space.

       10. status, followed by optional "score" number.

       11. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used.

       12. path for "src"

       13. a tab or a NUL when -z option is used; only exists for C or R.

       14. path for "dst"; only exists for C or R.

       15. an LF or a NUL when -z option is used, to terminate the record.

       Possible status letters are:

       •   A: addition of a file

       •   C: copy of a file into a new one

       •   D: deletion of a file

       •   M: modification of the contents or mode of a file

       •   R: renaming of a file

       •   T: change in the type of the file (regular file, symbolic link or submodule)

       •   U: file is unmerged (you must complete the merge before it can be committed)

       •   X: "unknown" change type (most probably a bug, please report it)

       Status letters C and R are always followed by a score (denoting the percentage of similarity
       between the source and target of the move or copy). Status letter M may be followed by a
       score (denoting the percentage of dissimilarity) for file rewrites.

       <sha1> is shown as all 0’s if a file is new on the filesystem and it is out of sync with the
       index.

       Example:

           :100644 100644 5be4a4a 0000000 M file.c


       Without the -z option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the
       configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)). Using -z the filename is output
       verbatim and the line is terminated by a NUL byte.

DIFF FORMAT FOR MERGES
       "git-diff-tree", "git-diff-files" and "git-diff --raw" can take -c or --cc option to generate
       diff output also for merge commits. The output differs from the format described above in the
       following way:

        1. there is a colon for each parent

        2. there are more "src" modes and "src" sha1

        3. status is concatenated status characters for each parent

        4. no optional "score" number

        5. tab-separated pathname(s) of the file

       For -c and --cc, only the destination or final path is shown even if the file was renamed on
       any side of history. With --combined-all-paths, the name of the path in each parent is shown
       followed by the name of the path in the merge commit.

       Examples for -c and --cc without --combined-all-paths:

           ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM       desc.c
           ::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM       bar.sh
           ::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR       phooey.c


       Examples when --combined-all-paths added to either -c or --cc:

           ::100644 100644 100644 fabadb8 cc95eb0 4866510 MM       desc.c  desc.c  desc.c
           ::100755 100755 100755 52b7a2d 6d1ac04 d2ac7d7 RM       foo.sh  bar.sh  bar.sh
           ::100644 100644 100644 e07d6c5 9042e82 ee91881 RR       fooey.c fuey.c  phooey.c


       Note that combined diff lists only files which were modified from all parents.

GENERATING PATCH TEXT WITH -P
       Running git-diff(1), git-log(1), git-show(1), git-diff-index(1), git-diff-tree(1), or git-
       diff-files(1) with the -p option produces patch text. You can customize the creation of patch
       text via the GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS environment variables (see git(1)), and
       the diff attribute (see gitattributes(5)).

       What the -p option produces is slightly different from the traditional diff format:

        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 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 the file that rename/copy produces, respectively.

        2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines:

               old mode <mode>
               new mode <mode>
               deleted file mode <mode>
               new file mode <mode>
               copy from <path>
               copy to <path>
               rename from <path>
               rename to <path>
               similarity index <number>
               dissimilarity index <number>
               index <hash>..<hash> <mode>

           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 blob object names 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. Pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the configuration
           variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).

        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

        5. Hunk headers mention the name of the function to which the hunk applies. See "Defining a
           custom hunk-header" in gitattributes(5) for details of how to tailor to this to specific
           languages.

COMBINED DIFF FORMAT
       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 git-diff(1) or git-
       show(1). Note also that you can give suitable --diff-merges option to any of these commands
       to force generation of diffs in specific format.

       A "combined diff" format looks like this:

           diff --combined describe.c
           index fabadb8,cc95eb0..4866510
           --- a/describe.c
           +++ b/describe.c
           @@@ -98,20 -98,12 +98,20 @@@
                   return (a_date > b_date) ? -1 : (a_date == b_date) ? 0 : 1;
             }

           - static void describe(char *arg)
            -static void describe(struct commit *cmit, int last_one)
           ++static void describe(char *arg, int last_one)
             {
            +      unsigned char sha1[20];
            +      struct commit *cmit;
                   struct commit_list *list;
                   static int initialized = 0;
                   struct commit_name *n;

            +      if (get_sha1(arg, sha1) < 0)
            +              usage(describe_usage);
            +      cmit = lookup_commit_reference(sha1);
            +      if (!cmit)
            +              usage(describe_usage);
            +
                   if (!initialized) {
                           initialized = 1;
                           for_each_ref(get_name);



        1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header, that looks like this (when the -c option is
           used):

               diff --combined file

           or like this (when the --cc option is used):

               diff --cc file

        2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines (this example shows a merge with two
           parents):

               index <hash>,<hash>..<hash>
               mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode>
               new file mode <mode>
               deleted file mode <mode>,<mode>

           The mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode> line appears only if at least one of the <mode> is
           different from the rest. Extended headers with information about detected contents
           movement (renames and copying detection) are designed to work with diff of two <tree-ish>
           and are not used by combined diff format.

        3. It is followed by two-line from-file/to-file header

               --- a/file
               +++ b/file

           Similar to two-line header for traditional unified diff format, /dev/null is used to
           signal created or deleted files.

           However, if the --combined-all-paths option is provided, instead of a two-line
           from-file/to-file you get a N+1 line from-file/to-file header, where N is the number of
           parents in the merge commit

               --- a/file
               --- a/file
               --- a/file
               +++ b/file

           This extended format can be useful if rename or copy detection is active, to allow you to
           see the original name of the file in different parents.

        4. Chunk header format is modified to prevent people from accidentally feeding it to patch
           -p1. Combined diff format was created for review of merge commit changes, and was not
           meant to be applied. The change is similar to the change in the extended index header:

               @@@ <from-file-range> <from-file-range> <to-file-range> @@@

           There are (number of parents + 1) @ characters in the chunk header for combined diff
           format.

       Unlike the traditional unified diff format, which shows two files A and B with a single
       column that has - (minus — appears in A but removed in B), + (plus — missing in A but added
       to B), or " " (space — unchanged) prefix, this format compares two or more files file1,
       file2,... with one file X, and shows how X differs from each of fileN. One column for each of
       fileN is prepended to the output line to note how X’s line is different from it.

       A - character in the column N means that the line appears in fileN but it does not appear in
       the result. A + character in the column N means that the line appears in the result, and
       fileN does not have that line (in other words, the line was added, from the point of view of
       that parent).

       In the above example output, the function signature was changed from both files (hence two -
       removals from both file1 and file2, plus ++ to mean one line that was added does not appear
       in either file1 or file2). Also eight other lines are the same from file1 but do not appear
       in file2 (hence prefixed with +).

       When shown by git diff-tree -c, it compares the parents of a merge commit with the merge
       result (i.e. file1..fileN are the parents). When shown by git diff-files -c, it compares the
       two unresolved merge parents with the working tree file (i.e. file1 is stage 2 aka "our
       version", file2 is stage 3 aka "their version").

OTHER DIFF FORMATS
       The --summary option describes newly added, deleted, renamed and copied files. The --stat
       option adds diffstat(1) graph to the output. These options can be combined with other
       options, such as -p, and are meant for human consumption.

       When showing a change that involves a rename or a copy, --stat output formats the pathnames
       compactly by combining common prefix and suffix of the pathnames. For example, a change that
       moves arch/i386/Makefile to arch/x86/Makefile while modifying 4 lines will be shown like
       this:

           arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile    |   4 +--


       The --numstat option gives the diffstat(1) information but is designed for easier machine
       consumption. An entry in --numstat output looks like this:

           1       2       README
           3       1       arch/{i386 => x86}/Makefile


       That is, from left to right:

        1. the number of added lines;

        2. a tab;

        3. the number of deleted lines;

        4. a tab;

        5. pathname (possibly with rename/copy information);

        6. a newline.

       When -z output option is in effect, the output is formatted this way:

           1       2       README NUL
           3       1       NUL arch/i386/Makefile NUL arch/x86/Makefile NUL


       That is:

        1. the number of added lines;

        2. a tab;

        3. the number of deleted lines;

        4. a tab;

        5. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);

        6. pathname in preimage;

        7. a NUL (only exists if renamed/copied);

        8. pathname in postimage (only exists if renamed/copied);

        9. a NUL.

       The extra NUL before the preimage path in renamed case is to allow scripts that read the
       output to tell if the current record being read is a single-path record or a rename/copy
       record without reading ahead. After reading added and deleted lines, reading up to NUL would
       yield the pathname, but if that is NUL, the record will show two paths.

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite



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