Configuring diff tool with gitconfig

Question

How do I configure Git to use a different tool for diffing with the  gitconfig file   I have this in my  gitconfig    diff      tool   git-chdiff  also tried  bin git-chdiff   It does not work  it just opens the regular command line diff  When I do  export GIT EXTERNAL DIFF git-chdiff   then git diff will open up the external diffing tool  so I know the external diff tool script works fine   Do I have something wrong with my  gitconfig configuration for the diff tool

User · Answer

almost all the solutions above doesn t work with git version 2 mine   git version   2 28 0 solution of the difftool    git config --global diff tool vimdiff after it you can use it without any problems

User · Answer

In Windows we need to run  git difftool --tool-help command to see the various options like        git difftool --tool  lt tool gt   may be set to one of the following                      vimdiff                     vimdiff2                     vimdiff3      The following tools are valid  but not currently available                      araxis                     bc                     bc3                     codecompare                     deltawalker                     diffmerge                     diffuse                     ecmerge                     emerge                     examdiff                     gvimdiff                     gvimdiff2                     gvimdiff3                     kdiff3                     kompare                     meld                     opendiff                     p4merge                     tkdiff                     winmerge                     xxdiff Some of the tools listed above only work in a windowed environment  If run in a terminal-only session  they will fail    and we can add any of them for example winmerge  like     git difftool --tool winmerge   For configuring notepad   to see files before committing    git config --global core editor   C  Program Files Notepad   notepad   exe  -multiInst -notabbar -nosession -noPlugin    and using   git commit will open the commit information in notepad

User · Answer

Others have done a 99  answer on this  but there is one step left out   My answer will be coming from OS nbsp X so you will have to change file paths accordingly    You make these changes to your    gitconfig    diff      tool   diffmerge  difftool  diffmerge       cmd    Applications Diffmerge app Contents MacOS diffmerge  LOCAL  REMOTE   This will fix the diff tool  You can also fix this without editing the    gitconfig directly by entering these commands from the terminal   git config --global diff tool diffmerge git config --global difftool diffmerge cmd   Applications DiffMerge appContents MacOS diffmerge   LOCAL   REMOTE    The 1  that everyone else failed to mention is when using this you can t just run git diff myfile txt  you need to run git difftool myfile txt

User · Answer

If you want to have an option to use multiple diff tools add an alias to  gitconfig   alias      kdiff   difftool --tool kdiff3

User · Answer

Here s the part of my    gitconfig where I configure diff and merge tools  I like diffmerge by SourceGear   I like it very very much  as a matter of fact     merge          tool   diffmerge  mergetool  diffmerge           cmd    diffmerge --merge --result    MERGED      LOCAL       if test -f    BASE    then echo    BASE    else echo    LOCAL    fi       REMOTE            trustExitCode   false  diff          tool   diffmerge  difftool  diffmerge           cmd   diffmerge    LOCAL      REMOTE     So  you see  you re defining a tool named  diffmerge  in the  difftool  diffmerge   line  Then I m setting the tool  diffmerge  as the default in the  diff   tool   section   I obviously have the  diffmerge  command in my path  here  Otherwise I d need to give a full path to the executable

User · Answer

Refer to Microsoft vscode-tips-and-tricks  Just run these commands in your terminal   git config --global merge tool code  But firstly you need add code command to your PATH

User · Answer

Reproducing my answer from this thread which was more specific to setting beyond compare as diff tool for Git  All the details that I ve shared are equally useful for any diff tool in general so sharing it here   The first command that we run is as below   git config --global diff tool bc3   The above command creates below entry in  gitconfig found in  userprofile  directory    diff      tool   bc3   Then you run below command  Running this command is redundant in this particular case and is required in some specialized cases only  You will know it in a short while    git config --global difftool bc3 path  c  program files beyond compare 3 bcomp exe    Above command creates below entry in  gitconfig file    difftool  bc3       path   c  program files Beyond Compare 3 bcomp exe   The thing to know here is the key bc3  This is a well known key to git corresponding to a particular version of well known comparison tools available in market  bc3 corresponds to 3rd version of Beyond Compare tool   If you want to see all pre-defined keys just run git difftool --tool-help command on git bash  It returns below list   vimdiff vimdiff2 vimdiff3 araxis bc bc3 codecompare deltawalker diffmerge diffuse ecmerge emerge examdiff gvimdiff gvimdiff2 gvimdiff3 kdiff3 kompare meld opendiff p4merge tkdiff winmerge xxdiff   You can use any of the above keys or define a custom key of your own  If you want to setup a new tool altogether or a newly released version of well-known tool  which doesn t map to any of the keys listed above then you are free to map it to any of keys listed above or to a new custom key of your own   What if you have to setup a comparison tool which is   Absolutely new in market   OR    A new version of an existing well known tool has got released which is not mapped to any pre-defined keys in git    Like in my case  I had installed beyond compare 4  beyond compare is a well-known tool to git but its version 4 release is not mapped to any of the existing keys by default  So you can follow any of the below approaches    I can map beyond compare 4 tool to already existing key bc3 which corresponds to beyond compare 3 version  I didn t have beyond compare version 3 on my computer so I didn t care  If I wanted I could have mapped it to any of the pre-defined keys in the above list also e g  examdiff    If you map well known version of tools to appropriate already existing well- known key then you would not need to run the second command as their install  path is already known to git   For e g  if I had installed beyond compare version 3 on my box then having below configuration in my  gitconfig file would have been sufficient to get going    diff  tool   bc3   But if you want to change the default associated tool then you end up mentioning the path attribute separately so that git gets to know the path from where you new tool s exe has to be launched  Here is the entry which foxes git to launch beyond compare 4 instead  Note the exe s path    difftool  bc3   path   c  program files Beyond Compare 4 bcomp exe  Most cleanest approach is to define a new key altogether for the new comparison tool or a new version of an well known tool  Like in my case I defined a new key bc4 so that it is easy to remember  In such a case you have to run two commands in all but your second command will not be setting path of your new tool s executable  Instead you have to set cmd attribute for your new tool as shown below   git config --global diff tool bc4  git config --global difftool bc4 cmd    C   Program Files  Beyond Compare 4  bcomp exe   -s     LOCAL   -d     REMOTE      Running above commands creates below entries in your  gitconfig file    diff  tool   bc4  difftool  bc4   cmd     C   Program Files  Beyond Compare 4  bcomp exe   -s    LOCAL   -d    REMOTE      I would strongly recommend you to follow approach   2 to avoid any confusion for yourself in future

User · Answer

Adding one of the blocks below works for me to use KDiff3 for my Windows and Linux development environments  It makes for a nice consistent cross-platform diff and merge tool   Linux   difftool  kdiff3       path    usr bin kdiff3     trustExitCode   false  difftool      prompt   false  diff      tool   kdiff3  mergetool  kdiff3       path    usr bin kdiff3     trustExitCode   false  mergetool      keepBackup   false  merge      tool   kdiff3   Windows   difftool  kdiff3       path   C  Progra 1 KDiff3 kdiff3 exe     trustExitCode   false  difftool      prompt   false  diff      tool   kdiff3  mergetool  kdiff3       path   C  Progra 1 KDiff3 kdiff3 exe     trustExitCode   false  mergetool      keepBackup   false  merge      tool   kdiff3

User · Answer

An additional way to do that  from the command line    git config --global diff tool tkdiff git config --global merge tool tkdiff git config --global --add difftool prompt false   The first two lines will set the difftool and mergetool to tkdiff- change that according to your preferences  The third line disables the annoying prompt so whenever you hit git difftool it will automatically launch the difftool

User · Answer

Git offers a range of difftools pre-configured  out-of-the-box   kdiff3  kompare  tkdiff  meld  xxdiff  emerge  vimdiff  gvimdiff  ecmerge  diffuse  opendiff  p4merge and araxis   and also allows you to specify your own  To use one of the pre-configured difftools  for example   vimdiff    you add the following lines to your    gitconfig    diff      tool   vimdiff   Now  you will be able to run  git difftool  and use your tool of choice   Specifying your own difftool  on the other hand  takes a little bit more work  see How do I view   39 git diff  39  output with my preferred diff tool  viewer

[git] Configuring diff tool with .gitconfig

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