How to view file diff in git before commit

Question

This often happens to me    I m working on a couple related changes at the same time over the course of a day or two  and when it s time to commit  I end up forgetting what changed in a specific file   This is just a personal git repo  so I m ok with having more than one update in a commit     Is there any way to preview the changes between my local file  which is about to be checked in  and the last commit for that file    Something like   git diff --changed  myfile txt   And it would print out something like   line 23    last commit   var   2 2    current       var   myfunction     2  line 149    last commit   return var    current       return var   7   This way  I could quickly see what I had done in that file since it was last checked in

User · Answer

Another technique to consider if you want to compare a file to the last commit which is more pedantic:

git diff master myfile.txt

The advantage with this technique is you can also compare to the penultimate commit with:

git diff master^ myfile.txt

and the one before that:

git diff master^^ myfile.txt

Also you can substitute '~' for the caret '^' character and 'you branch name' for 'master' if you are not on the master branch.

User · Answer

Did you try -v  or --verbose  option for git commit  It adds the diff of the commit in the message editor

User · Answer

I think this is the perfect use case warranting a GUI  - Although I totally understand that it can also be achieved well enough within the command line   Personally  every commit of mine  I do from the git-gui  In which I can make multiple atomic commits with separate hunks lines if it makes sense to do so   Gut Gui enables viewing of the diffs in a well formatted colored interface  is rather light  Looks like this is something you should checkout too

User · Answer

On macOS  go to the git root directory and enter git diff

User · Answer

git diff HEAD file   will show you changes you added to your worktree from the last commit  All the changes  staged or not staged  will be shown

User · Answer

To check for local differences   git diff myfile txt   or you can use a diff tool  in case you d like to revert some changes    git difftool myfile txt   To use git difftool more efficiently  install and use your favourite GUI tool such as Meld  DiffMerge or OpenDiff   Note  You can also use    instead of filename  to see current dir changes   In order to check changes per each line  use  git blame which will display which line was commited in which commit     To view the actual file before the commit  where master is your branch   run   git show master path my file

User · Answer

git difftool -d HEAD filename txt   This shows a comparison using VI slit window in the terminal

User · Answer

The best way I found  aside of using a dedicated commit GUI  is to use git difftool -d - This opens your diff tool in directory comparison mode  comparing HEAD with current dirty folder

User · Answer

If you want to see what you haven t git added yet   git diff myfile txt   or if you want to see already added changes  git diff --cached myfile txt

[git] How to view file diff in git before commit

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