How do I diff the same file between two different commits on the same branch?

In Git, how could I compare the same file between two different commits (not contiguous) on the same branch (master for example)?

I'm searching for a compare feature like the one in Visual SourceSafe (VSS) or Team Founda开发者_运维知识库tion Server (TFS).

Is it possible in Git?

From the git-diff manpage:

git diff [--options] <commit> <commit> [--] [<path>...]

For instance, to see the difference for a file "main.c" between now and two commits back, here are three equivalent commands:

$ git diff HEAD^^ HEAD main.c
$ git diff HEAD^^..HEAD -- main.c
$ git diff HEAD~2 HEAD -- main.c

You can also compare two different files in two different revisions, like this:

git diff <revision_1>:<file_1> <revision_2>:<file_2>

If you have configured the "difftool" you can use

git difftool revision_1:file_1 revision_2:file_2

Example: Comparing a file from its last commit to its previous commit on the same branch: Assuming that if you are in your project root folder

$git difftool HEAD:src/main/java/com.xyz.test/MyApp.java HEAD^:src/main/java/com.xyz.test/MyApp.java

You should have the following entries in your ~/.gitconfig or in project/.git/config file. Install the p4merge.

[merge]
    tool = p4merge
    keepBackup = false
[diff]
    tool = p4merge
    keepBackup = false
[difftool "p4merge"]
    path = C:/Program Files (x86)/Perforce/p4merge.exe
[mergetool]
    keepBackup = false
[difftool]
    keepBackup = false
[mergetool "p4merge"]
    path = C:/Program Files (x86)/Perforce/p4merge.exe
    cmd = p4merge.exe \"$BASE\" \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\" \"$MERGED\"

Note: If you are using Intellij Enterprise or Community Edition - It has a good tool for doing 3 way merge when doing a merging/rebasing

For simple diff you can right click->Git->Compare with revision

Select the revision you are interested in

Intellij will show the diff.

Check $ git log, copy the SHA-1 ID of the two different commits, and run the git diff command with those IDs. for example:

$ git diff (sha-id-one) (sha-id-two)

If you want to see all changes to the file between the two commits on a commit-by-commit basis, you can also do

git log -u $start_commit..$end_commit -- path/to/file

Here is a Perl script that prints out Git diff commands for a given file as found in a Git log command.

E.g.

git log pom.xml | perl gldiff.pl 3 pom.xml

Yields:

git diff 5cc287:pom.xml e8e420:pom.xml
git diff 3aa914:pom.xml 7476e1:pom.xml
git diff 422bfd:pom.xml f92ad8:pom.xml

which could then be cut and pasted in a shell window session or piped to /bin/sh.

Notes:

1. the number (3 in this case) specifies how many lines to print
2. the file (pom.xml in this case) must agree in both places (you could wrap it in a shell function to provide the same file in both places) or put it in a binary directory as a shell script

Code:

# gldiff.pl
use strict;

my $max  = shift;
my $file = shift;

die "not a number" unless $max =~ m/\d+/;
die "not a file"   unless -f $file;

my $count;
my @lines;

while (<>) {
    chomp;
    next unless s/^commit\s+(.*)//;
    my $commit = $1;
    push @lines, sprintf "%s:%s", substr($commit,0,6),$file;
    if (@lines == 2) {
        printf "git diff %s %s\n", @lines;
        @lines = ();
    }
    last if ++$count >= $max *2;
}

If you have several files or directories and want to compare non continuous commits, you could do this:

Make a temporary branch ("revision" in this example)

git checkout -b revision

Rewind to the first commit target

git reset --hard <commit_target>

Cherry picking on those commit interested

git cherry-pick <commit_interested> ...

Apply diff

git diff <commit-target>^

When you done

git branch -D revision

If you want to make a diff with more than one file, with the method specified by @mipadi:

E.g. diff between HEAD and your master, to find all .coffee files:

git diff master..HEAD -- `find your_search_folder/ -name '*.coffee'`

This will recursively search your your_search_folder/ for all .coffee files and make a diff between them and their master versions.

Just another way to use Git's awesomeness...

git difftool HEAD HEAD@{N} /PATH/FILE.ext

All the other responses are more complete, so upvote them. This one is just to remember that you can avoid knowing the id of the recent commit. Usually, I set my self in the branch that I want to compare and run diff tools knowing the old commit uid (You can use other notations):

git checkout master
git difftool 6f8bba my/file/relative/path.py

Also, check this other response here to set the tool you want git open to compare the file: Configuring diff tool with .gitconfig And to learn more about difftool, go to the difftool doc

If you want a simple visual comparison on Windows such as you can get in Visual SourceSafe or Team Foundation Server (TFS), try this:

• right-click on the file in File Explorer
• select 'Git History'

Note: After upgrading to Windows 10 I have lost the Git context menu options. However, you can achieve the same thing using 'gitk' or 'gitk filename' in a command window.

Once you call 'Git History', the Git GUI tool will start, with a history of the file in the top left pane. Select one of the versions you would like to compare. Then right-click on the second version and choose either

Diff this -> selected

or

Diff selected -> this

Colour-coded differences will appear in the lower left-hand pane.