How to compare files from two different branches

Question

I have a script that works fine in one branch and is broken in another  I want to look at the two versions side-by-side and see what s different  Are there any ways to do this   To be clear I m not looking for a compare tool  I use Beyond Compare   I m looking for a git diff command that will allow me to compare the master version to my current branch version to see what has changed  I m not in the middle of a merge or anything  I just want to say something like   git diff mybranch myfile cs master myfile cs

User · Answer

In order to compare two files in the git bash you need to use the command:

git diff <Branch name>..master -- Filename.extension

This command will show the difference between the two files in the bash itself.

User · Answer

Use commit hashes as this   git diff  lt hash1 gt   lt hash2 gt   lt filename gt    where hash1 can be any commit from any branch  the same for hash2

User · Answer

Agreeing with the answer suggested by  dahlbyk  If you want the diff to be written to a diff file for code reviews use the following command   git diff branch master -- filepath filename extension  gt  filename diff --cached

User · Answer

I simply do git diff branch1 branch2 path to file  This checks for differences between the files  Changes in branch1 would be in red  Changes in branch2 would be in green   It s assumed that branch1 is the past and branch2 is the future  You can reverse this by reversing the order of the branches in the diff  git diff branch2 branch1

User · Answer

More modern syntax   git diff   master path to file  The double-dot prefix means  from the current working directory to    You can also say    master    i e  the reverse of above   This is the same as master  mybranch  master  explicitly referencing a state other than the current working tree  v2 0 1  master  i e  referencing a tag   refspec    refspec   basically anything identifiable as a code state to git

User · Answer

In my case  I use below command   git diff  lt branch name gt  --  lt path   file name gt    This command can help you compare same file in two different branches

User · Answer

There are many ways to compare files from two different branches    Option 1  If you want to compare the file from n specific branch to another specific branch   git diff branch1name branch2name path to file   Example   git diff mybranch myfile cs mysecondbranch myfile cs      In this example you are comparing the file in    mybranch    branch to the   file in the    mysecondbranch    branch   Option 2  Simple way    git diff branch1 file branch2 file   Example    git diff mybranch myfile cs mysecondbranch myfile cs      This example is similar to the option 1   Option 3  If you want to compare your current working directory to some branch   git diff   someBranch path to file   Example   git diff   master myfile cs      In this example you are comparing the file from your actual branch to   the file in the master branch

User · Answer

The best way to do it is by using git diff in the following way  git diff  lt source branch gt   lt target branch gt  -- file path  It will check the difference between files in those branches  Take a look at this article for more information about git commands  and how they work

User · Answer

There are two scenarios to compare files   Scenario 1  Compare files at remote branches  both branches should exists on remote repository   Scenario 2  Compare local files  at local working area copy  to the files at remote repository   The logic is simple  If you provide two branch names to diff  it will always compare the remote branches  and if you provide only one branch name  it will always compare your local working copy with the remote repo  the one you provided   You can use range to provide remote repositories   e g  Checkout a branch  git checkout branch1   git diff branch2  filename    in this case  if you provide filename  it will compare your local copy of filename with remote branch named  branch2    git diff branch1 branch2  filename    in this case  it will compare filename from remote branches named  branch1  vs  branch2   git diff   branch2  filename    in this case also  it will compare filename from remote branches named  branch1  vs  branch2   So  its same as above  However  if you have just created a branch from another branch  say  master  and your current branch doesn t exists on remote repository  it will  compare remote  master  vs remote  branch2    Hope its useful

User · Answer

If you want to make a diff against current branch you can ommit it and use   git diff  BRANCH -- path to file   this way it will diff from current branch to the referenced branch   BRANCH

User · Answer

git diff can show you the difference between two commits  git diff mybranch master -- myfile cs  Or  equivalently  git diff mybranch  master -- myfile cs  Note you must specify the relative path to the file  So if the file were in the src directory  you d say src myfile cs instead of myfile cs  Using the latter syntax  if either side is HEAD it may be omitted  e g  master   compares master to HEAD   You may also be interested in mybranch   master  from git diff docs    This form is to view the changes on the branch containing and up to the second  lt commit gt   starting at a common ancestor of both  lt commit gt   git diff A   B is equivalent to git diff   git-merge-base A B  B   In other words  this will give a diff of changes in master since it diverged from mybranch  but without new changes since then in mybranch    In all cases  the -- separator before the file name indicates the end of command line flags  This is optional unless Git will get confused if the argument refers to a commit or a file  but including it is not a bad habit to get into  See https   stackoverflow com a 13321491 54249 for a few examples   The same arguments can be passed to git difftool if you have one configured

User · Answer

You can do this  git diff branch1 path to file branch2 path to file  If you have difftool configured  then you can also  git difftool branch1 path to file branch2 path to file  Related question  How do I view git diff output with visual diff program

[git] How to compare files from two different branches?

Examples related to git

Examples related to git-diff