man > git-difftool(1)

GIT-DIFFTOOL(1)                              Git Manual                              GIT-DIFFTOOL(1)

NAME
       git-difftool - Show changes using common diff tools

SYNOPSIS
       git difftool [<options>] [<commit> [<commit>]] [--] [<path>...]


DESCRIPTION
       git difftool is a Git command that allows you to compare and edit files between revisions
       using common diff tools. git difftool is a frontend to git diff and accepts the same options
       and arguments. See git-diff(1).

OPTIONS
       -d, --dir-diff
           Copy the modified files to a temporary location and perform a directory diff on them.
           This mode never prompts before launching the diff tool.

       -y, --no-prompt
           Do not prompt before launching a diff tool.

       --prompt
           Prompt before each invocation of the diff tool. This is the default behaviour; the option
           is provided to override any configuration settings.

       --rotate-to=<file>
           Start showing the diff for the given path, the paths before it will move to the end and
           output.

       --skip-to=<file>
           Start showing the diff for the given path, skipping all the paths before it.

       -t <tool>, --tool=<tool>
           Use the diff tool specified by <tool>. Valid values include emerge, kompare, meld, and
           vimdiff. Run git difftool --tool-help for the list of valid <tool> settings.

           If a diff tool is not specified, git difftool will use the configuration variable
           diff.tool. If the configuration variable diff.tool is not set, git difftool will pick a
           suitable default.

           You can explicitly provide a full path to the tool by setting the configuration variable
           difftool.<tool>.path. For example, you can configure the absolute path to kdiff3 by
           setting difftool.kdiff3.path. Otherwise, git difftool assumes the tool is available in
           PATH.

           Instead of running one of the known diff tools, git difftool can be customized to run an
           alternative program by specifying the command line to invoke in a configuration variable
           difftool.<tool>.cmd.

           When git difftool is invoked with this tool (either through the -t or --tool option or
           the diff.tool configuration variable) the configured command line will be invoked with
           the following variables available: $LOCAL is set to the name of the temporary file
           containing the contents of the diff pre-image and $REMOTE is set to the name of the
           temporary file containing the contents of the diff post-image.  $MERGED is the name of
           the file which is being compared.  $BASE is provided for compatibility with custom merge
           tool commands and has the same value as $MERGED.

       --tool-help
           Print a list of diff tools that may be used with --tool.

       --[no-]symlinks
           git difftool's default behavior is to create symlinks to the working tree when run in
           --dir-diff mode and the right-hand side of the comparison yields the same content as the
           file in the working tree.

           Specifying --no-symlinks instructs git difftool to create copies instead.  --no-symlinks
           is the default on Windows.

       -x <command>, --extcmd=<command>
           Specify a custom command for viewing diffs.  git-difftool ignores the configured defaults
           and runs $command $LOCAL $REMOTE when this option is specified. Additionally, $BASE is
           set in the environment.

       -g, --[no-]gui
           When git-difftool is invoked with the -g or --gui option the default diff tool will be
           read from the configured diff.guitool variable instead of diff.tool. This may be selected
           automatically using the configuration variable difftool.guiDefault. The --no-gui option
           can be used to override these settings. If diff.guitool is not set, we will fallback in
           the order of merge.guitool, diff.tool, merge.tool until a tool is found.

       --[no-]trust-exit-code
           git-difftool invokes a diff tool individually on each file. Errors reported by the diff
           tool are ignored by default. Use --trust-exit-code to make git-difftool exit when an
           invoked diff tool returns a non-zero exit code.

           git-difftool will forward the exit code of the invoked tool when --trust-exit-code is
           used.

       See git-diff(1) for the full list of supported options.

CONFIGURATION
       git difftool falls back to git mergetool config variables when the difftool equivalents have
       not been defined.

       Everything above this line in this section isn’t included from the git-config(1)
       documentation. The content that follows is the same as what’s found there:

       diff.tool
           Controls which diff tool is used by git-difftool(1). This variable overrides the value
           configured in merge.tool. The list below shows the valid built-in values. Any other value
           is treated as a custom diff tool and requires that a corresponding difftool.<tool>.cmd
           variable is defined.

       diff.guitool
           Controls which diff tool is used by git-difftool(1) when the -g/--gui flag is specified.
           This variable overrides the value configured in merge.guitool. The list below shows the
           valid built-in values. Any other value is treated as a custom diff tool and requires that
           a corresponding difftool.<guitool>.cmd variable is defined.

       difftool.<tool>.cmd
           Specify the command to invoke the specified diff tool. The specified command is evaluated
           in shell with the following variables available: LOCAL is set to the name of the
           temporary file containing the contents of the diff pre-image and REMOTE is set to the
           name of the temporary file containing the contents of the diff post-image.

           See the --tool=<tool> option in git-difftool(1) for more details.

       difftool.<tool>.path
           Override the path for the given tool. This is useful in case your tool is not in the
           PATH.

       difftool.trustExitCode
           Exit difftool if the invoked diff tool returns a non-zero exit status.

           See the --trust-exit-code option in git-difftool(1) for more details.

       difftool.prompt
           Prompt before each invocation of the diff tool.

       difftool.guiDefault
           Set true to use the diff.guitool by default (equivalent to specifying the --gui
           argument), or auto to select diff.guitool or diff.tool depending on the presence of a
           DISPLAY environment variable value. The default is false, where the --gui argument must
           be provided explicitly for the diff.guitool to be used.

SEE ALSO
       git-diff(1)
           Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc

       git-mergetool(1)
           Run merge conflict resolution tools to resolve merge conflicts

       git-config(1)
           Get and set repository or global options

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.43.0                                   07/02/2025                              GIT-DIFFTOOL(1)