I am using Git on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx).
I have made some commits to my master.
However, I want to get the difference between these commits. All of them are on my master branch.
For example:
commit dj374 made changes commit y4746 made changes commit k73ud made changes I want to get the difference between k73ud and dj374. However, when I did the following I couldn't see the changes I made in k73ud.
git diff k73ud..dj374 > master.patch Try
git diff k73ud^..dj374 to make sure to include all changes of k73ud in the resulting diff.
git diff compares two endpoints (instead of a commit range). Since the OP wants to see the changes introduced by k73ud, they need to differentiate between the first parent commit of k73ud: k73ud^ (or k73ud^1 or k73ud~).
That way, the diff results will include changes since k73ud parent (meaning including changes from k73ud itself), instead of changes introduced since k73ud (up to dj374).
Also, you can try, again using k73ud^ if you want the diff to include the changes introduced by k73ud (still true in 2025 and Git 2.51+):
git diff oldCommit^..newCommit git diff k73ud^..dj374 and (1 space, not more):
git diff oldCommit^ newCommit git diff k73ud^ dj374 (For git diff, a space and a double-dot mean the same thing: git diff A B ≡ git diff A..B, while triple-dot A...B is different; it diffs from merge-base(A,B) to B)
And if you need to get only file names (e.g., to copy hotfixes manually):
git diff k73ud^ dj374 --name-only And you can get changes applied to another branch:
git diff k73ud^ dj374 > my.patch git apply my.patch Again, since the OP's issue was that they could not see the changes from k73ud, using k73ud^ (a suffix carret) remains necessary in the above examples.
git diff 275e8^ a8d9d9 since it is the same then '..'.
git diff k73ud..dj374 is OKk73ud (the old commit) itself, which might not be what the OP wantedTo see the difference between:
Your working copy and staging area:
% git diff Staging area and the latest commit:
% git diff --staged Your working copy and commit 4ac0a6733:
% git diff 4ac0a6733 Commit 4ac0a6733 and the latest commit:
% git diff 4ac0a6733 HEAD Commit 4ac0a6733 and commit 826793951
% git diff 4ac0a6733 826793951 For more explanation see the official documentation.
git diff {x} {y} -- filename where {x} and {y} are any of those examples given. See also, git log -p, since there's some overlap.If you want to see the changes introduced with each commit, try "git log -p"
git log -p --reverse old_hash..new_hash!gitk --all
To see the difference between two different commits (let's call them a and b), use
git diff a..b a and b is opposite from b and a.To see the difference between your last commit and not yet committed changes, use
git diff If you want to be able to come back to the difference later, you can save it in a file.
git diff a..b > ../project.diff I use gitk to see the difference:
gitk k73ud..dj374 It has a GUI mode so that reviewing is easier.
1. git diff <commit-id> <commit-id> 2. git diff HEAD^ HEAD -(HEAD = current branch’s tip),( HEAD^ = version before the last commit) 3. git diff HEAD^ HEAD — ./file (comparison to specified file) 4. git diff HEAD~5 HEAD - (HEAD~5 refers to the last 5 commits.) I wrote a script which displays diff between two commits, works well on Ubuntu.
https://gist.github.com/jacobabrahamb4/a60624d6274ece7a0bd2d141b53407bc
#!/usr/bin/env python import sys, subprocess, os TOOLS = ['bcompare', 'meld'] def execute(command): return subprocess.check_output(command) def getTool(): for tool in TOOLS: try: out = execute(['which', tool]).strip() if tool in out: return tool except subprocess.CalledProcessError: pass return None def printUsageAndExit(): print 'Usage: python bdiff.py <project> <commit_one> <commit_two>' print 'Example: python bdiff.py <project> 0 1' print 'Example: python bdiff.py <project> fhejk7fe d78ewg9we' print 'Example: python bdiff.py <project> 0 d78ewg9we' sys.exit(0) def getCommitIds(name, first, second): commit1 = None commit2 = None try: first_index = int(first) - 1 second_index = int(second) - 1 if int(first) < 0 or int(second) < 0: print "Cannot handle negative values: " sys.exit(0) logs = execute(['git', '-C', name, 'log', '--oneline', '--reverse']).splitlines() if first_index >= 0: commit1 = logs[first_index].split(' ')[0] if second_index >= 0: commit2 = logs[second_index].split(' ')[0] except ValueError: if first is not '0': commit1 = first if second is not '0': commit2 = second return commit1, commit2 def validateCommitIds(name, commit1, commit2): if not commit1 and not commit2: print "Nothing to do, exit!" return False try: if commit1: execute(['git', '-C', name, 'cat-file', '-t', commit1]) if commit2: execute(['git', '-C', name, 'cat-file', '-t', commit2]) except subprocess.CalledProcessError: return False return True def cleanup(commit1, commit2): execute(['rm', '-rf', '/tmp/'+(commit1 if commit1 else '0'), '/tmp/'+(commit2 if commit2 else '0')]) def checkoutCommit(name, commit): if commit: execute(['git', 'clone', name, '/tmp/'+commit]) execute(['git', '-C', '/tmp/'+commit, 'checkout', commit]) else: execute(['mkdir', '/tmp/0']) def compare(tool, commit1, commit2): execute([tool, '/tmp/'+(commit1 if commit1 else '0'), '/tmp/'+(commit2 if commit2 else '0')]) if __name__=='__main__': tool = getTool() if not tool: print "No GUI diff tools, install bcompare or meld" sys.exit(0) if len(sys.argv) is not 4: printUsageAndExit() name, first, second = None, 0, 0 try: name, first, second = sys.argv[1], sys.argv[2], sys.argv[3] except IndexError: printUsageAndExit() commit1, commit2 = getCommitIds(name, first, second) if validateCommitIds(name, commit1, commit2) is False: sys.exit(0) cleanup(commit1, commit2) try: checkoutCommit(name, commit1) checkoutCommit(name, commit2) compare(tool, commit1, commit2) except KeyboardInterrupt: pass finally: cleanup(commit1, commit2) sys.exit(0) I always love using the command line and have user friendly tools (with GUI) at my hand. Best of both worlds. Here is how I do it to compare two commits in Git.
You can show the diff between two commits like the following.
Edit your git config file in a TEXT EDITOR:
git config --global -e Set up a proper diff tool (user friendly) like Meld like this in Windows in the Git config file:
[difftool "meld"] cmd = "C:/Program Files (x86)/Meld/Meld.exe" "LOCAL\" \"REMOTE" --label "DIFF (ORIGINAL MY)" prompt = false path = C:\Program Files (x86)\Meld\Meld.exe Meld can be installed using Chocolatey like this from the COMMAND LINE:
choco install meld Let's define a shell function to help us compare two sha-s (commits) under [alias] in the TEXT EDITOR:
[alias] showchangesbetween = "!w() { git difftool \"$1\" \"$2\" --dir-diff --ignore-all-space; }; w" To compare the commits with the help of Meld (or your other favorite diff tool, just type at the COMMAND LINE:
git showchangesbetween somesha123 somesha456 The commit sha-s are easily visible typing
git log for example.
git showchangesbetween worked without error and as expected. (I'm adding this as a comment because SO's edit queue is full.)Accepted answer is good.
Just putting it again here, so its easy to understand & try in future
git diff c1...c2 > mypatch_1.patch git diff c1..c2 > mypatch_2.patch git diff c1^..c2 > mypatch_3.patch I got the same diff for all the above commands.
Above helps in
1. seeing difference of between commit c1 & another commit c2
2. also making a patch file that shows diff and can be used to apply changes to another branch
If it not showing difference correctly
then c1 & c2 may be taken wrong
so adjust them to a before commit like c1 to c0, or to one after like c2 to c3
Use gitk to see the commits SHAs, 1st 8 characters are enough to use them as c0, c1, c2 or c3. You can also see the commits ids from Gitlab > Repository > Commits, etc.
Hope that helps.
Command below perfectly works for me on Ubuntu 20.04 and git v2.25.1:
git diff <base-commit-id> <target-commit-id> For the last two commits
git diff HEAD~1 HEAD by extension to compare 2 commits,that can be for example
git diff HEAD~6 HEAD~3 Let's say you have one more commit at the bottom (oldest), then this becomes pretty easy:
commit dj374 made changes commit y4746 made changes commit k73ud made changes commit oldestCommit made changes Now, using below will easily server the purpose.
git diff k73ud oldestCommit Use this command for the difference between commit and unstaged:
git difftool --dir-diff 