How can I see what has changed in a file before committing to git

Question

I ve noticed that while working on one or two tickets  if I step away  I m not sure what I worked on  what changed  etcetera   Is there a way to see the changes made for a given file before git add and then git commit

User · Answer

For some paths  the other answers will return an error of the form fatal  ambiguous argument  In these cases diff needs a separator to differentiate filename arguments from commit strings  For example to answer the question asked you d need to execute    git diff --cached --  lt path-to-file gt   This will display the changes between the modified files and the last commit  On the other hand  git diff --cached HEAD 3  lt path-to-file gt   will display the changes between the local version of  and the version three commits ago

User · Answer

Well  my case when you don t want to care about files list  Just show them all   When you already ran git add with your files list     git diff --cached   git diff --cached --name-only    In more recent versions of git  you can use --staged also  which is a synonym of --cached   The same can be used for haven t added files but without --cached option     git diff   git diff --name-only    Git command alias for  cached  option     git config --global alias diff-cached   git diff --cached   git diff --cached --name-only

User · Answer

git diff     Show changes between the working tree and the index or a tree  changes between the index and a tree  changes between two trees  or changes between two files on disk

User · Answer

git diff  lt path gt  filename   path can your be complete system path till the file or  if you are in the project you paste the modified file path also for Modified files with path use  git status

User · Answer

Go to your respective git repo  then run the below command   git diff filename  It will open the file with the changes marked  press return enter key to scroll down the file   P S  filename should include the full path of the file or else you can run without the full file path by going in the respective directory folder of the file

User · Answer

For me git add -p is the most useful way  and intended I think by git developers   to review all unstaged changes  it shows the diff for each file   choose a good set of changes that ought to go with a commit  then when you have staged all of those  then use git commit  and repeat for the next commit   Then you can make each commit be a useful or meaningful set of changes even if they took place in various files    I would also suggest creating a new branch for each ticket or similar activity  and switch between them using checkout  perhaps using git stash if you don t want to commit before switching   though if you are doing many quick changes this may be a pain  Don t forget to merge often

User · Answer

Remember  you re committing changes  not files   For this reason  it s very rare that I don t use git add -p  or the magit equivalent  to add my changes

User · Answer

Use git-diff  git diff -- yourfile

User · Answer

You re looking for git diff --staged Depending on your exact situation  there are three useful ways to use git diff   Show differences between index and working tree  that is  changes you haven t staged to commit   git diff  filename    Show differences between current commit and index  that is  what you re about to commit  --staged does exactly the same thing  use what you like    git diff --cached  filename    Show differences between current commit and working tree   git diff HEAD  filename   git diff works recursively on directories  and if no paths are given  it shows all changes

User · Answer

You can also use a git-friendly text editor  They show colors on the lines that have been modified  another color for added lines  another color for deleted lines  etc   A good text editor that does this is GitHub s Atom 1 0

User · Answer

git diff filename

[git] How can I see what has changed in a file before committing to git?

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