How to diff a commit with its parent

Question

Aside from writing an alias or script  is there a shorter command for getting the diff for a particular commit   git diff 15dc8   15dc8   If you only give the single commit id git diff 15dc8  it diffs that commit against HEAD

User · Accepted Answer

Use git show  COMMIT  It ll show you the log message for the commit  and the diff of that particular commit

User · Answer

Uses aliases  so doesn t answer your question exactly but I find these useful for doing what you intend     alias gitdiff-1  git log --reverse grep commit cut -d     -f2 tail -n 2 head -n 2 xargs echo sed -e  s  s      xargs -n 1 git diff  alias gitdiff-2  git log --reverse grep commit cut -d     -f2 tail -n 3 head -n 2 xargs echo sed -e  s  s      xargs -n 1 git diff  alias gitdiff-3  git log --reverse grep commit cut -d     -f2 tail -n 4 head -n 2 xargs echo sed -e  s  s      xargs -n 1 git diff   alias gitlog-1  git log --reverse grep commit cut -d     -f2 tail -n 2 head -n 2 xargs echo sed -e  s  s      xargs -n 1 git log --summary  alias gitlog-2  git log --reverse grep commit cut -d     -f2 tail -n 3 head -n 2 xargs echo sed -e  s  s      xargs -n 1 git log --summary  alias gitlog-3  git log --reverse grep commit cut -d     -f2 tail -n 4 head -n 2 xargs echo sed -e  s  s      xargs -n 1 git log --summary

User · Answer

If you know how far back  you can try something like     Current branch vs  parent git diff HEAD  HEAD    Current branch  diff between commits 2 and 3 times back git diff HEAD 3 HEAD 2   Prior commits work something like this     Parent of HEAD git show HEAD 1    Grandparent git show HEAD 2   There are a lot of ways you can specify commits     Great grandparent git show HEAD 3   See this page for details

User · Answer

git diff 15dc8 15dce 1    1 means  parent    2  grandparent  etc

User · Answer

Many of the mentioned examples  e g  git diff 15dc8    or git diff 15dc8   15dc8  don t work if you are using zsh and have extendedglob option set  You can fix it by one of the following three ways    unsetopt extendedglob  and or remove it from  zshrc  setopt NO NOMATCH  and or set it in  zshrc  escape the caret and bang every time with a backslash  e g  git diff 15dc8

User · Answer

Paul s solution above did what I was hoping it would     git diff HEAD 1   Also  it s useful to add aliases like hobs mentioned  if you put the following in the  alias  section of your    gitconfig file then you can use short-hand to view diff between head and previous    alias      diff-last   diff HEAD 1   Then running   git diff-last will get you your result  Note that this will also include any changes you ve not yet committed as well as the diff between commits  If you want to ignore changes you ve not yet committed  then you can use diff to compare the HEAD with it s parent directly     git diff HEAD 1 HEAD

User · Answer

Use   git diff 15dc8     as described in the following fragment of git-rev-parse 1  manpage  or in modern git gitrevisions 7  manpage       Two  other  shorthands  for naming a set that is formed by a commit and its   parent commits exist  The r1   notation  means  all  parents  of  r1   r1     includes commit r1 but excludes all of its parents    This means that you can use 15dc8   as a shorthand for 15dc8   15dc8 anywhere in git where revisions are needed   For diff command the git diff 15dc8   15dc8 is understood as git diff 15dc8  15dc8  which means the difference between parent of commit  15dc8   and commit  15dc8    Note  the description in git-rev-parse 1  manpage talks about revision ranges  where it needs to work also for merge commits  with more than one parent  Then r1   is  r1 --not r1    i e   r1  r1 1  r1 2         Also  you can use git show COMMIT to get commit description and diff for a commit  If you want only diff  you can use git diff-tree -p COMMIT

User · Answer

Paul s solution above did what I was hoping it would     git diff HEAD 1   Also  it s useful to add aliases like hobs mentioned  if you put the following in the  alias  section of your    gitconfig file then you can use short-hand to view diff between head and previous    alias      diff-last   diff HEAD 1   Then running   git diff-last will get you your result  Note that this will also include any changes you ve not yet committed as well as the diff between commits  If you want to ignore changes you ve not yet committed  then you can use diff to compare the HEAD with it s parent directly     git diff HEAD 1 HEAD

User · Answer

If you know how far back  you can try something like     Current branch vs  parent git diff HEAD  HEAD    Current branch  diff between commits 2 and 3 times back git diff HEAD 3 HEAD 2   Prior commits work something like this     Parent of HEAD git show HEAD 1    Grandparent git show HEAD 2   There are a lot of ways you can specify commits     Great grandparent git show HEAD 3   See this page for details

User · Answer

If you know how far back  you can try something like     Current branch vs  parent git diff HEAD  HEAD    Current branch  diff between commits 2 and 3 times back git diff HEAD 3 HEAD 2   Prior commits work something like this     Parent of HEAD git show HEAD 1    Grandparent git show HEAD 2   There are a lot of ways you can specify commits     Great grandparent git show HEAD 3   See this page for details

User · Answer

Use   git diff 15dc8     as described in the following fragment of git-rev-parse 1  manpage  or in modern git gitrevisions 7  manpage       Two  other  shorthands  for naming a set that is formed by a commit and its   parent commits exist  The r1   notation  means  all  parents  of  r1   r1     includes commit r1 but excludes all of its parents    This means that you can use 15dc8   as a shorthand for 15dc8   15dc8 anywhere in git where revisions are needed   For diff command the git diff 15dc8   15dc8 is understood as git diff 15dc8  15dc8  which means the difference between parent of commit  15dc8   and commit  15dc8    Note  the description in git-rev-parse 1  manpage talks about revision ranges  where it needs to work also for merge commits  with more than one parent  Then r1   is  r1 --not r1    i e   r1  r1 1  r1 2         Also  you can use git show COMMIT to get commit description and diff for a commit  If you want only diff  you can use git diff-tree -p COMMIT

User · Answer

As  mipadi points out  you can use git show  COMMIT  but this also shows some headers and the commit message  If you want a straight diff  use git show --pretty format  b  COMMIT   This is  obviously not a very short hand  so I m keeping this alias in my  gitconfig       alias        sd   show --pretty format  b   This enables me to use git sd  COMMITto show diff

User · Answer

Uses aliases  so doesn t answer your question exactly but I find these useful for doing what you intend     alias gitdiff-1  git log --reverse grep commit cut -d     -f2 tail -n 2 head -n 2 xargs echo sed -e  s  s      xargs -n 1 git diff  alias gitdiff-2  git log --reverse grep commit cut -d     -f2 tail -n 3 head -n 2 xargs echo sed -e  s  s      xargs -n 1 git diff  alias gitdiff-3  git log --reverse grep commit cut -d     -f2 tail -n 4 head -n 2 xargs echo sed -e  s  s      xargs -n 1 git diff   alias gitlog-1  git log --reverse grep commit cut -d     -f2 tail -n 2 head -n 2 xargs echo sed -e  s  s      xargs -n 1 git log --summary  alias gitlog-2  git log --reverse grep commit cut -d     -f2 tail -n 3 head -n 2 xargs echo sed -e  s  s      xargs -n 1 git log --summary  alias gitlog-3  git log --reverse grep commit cut -d     -f2 tail -n 4 head -n 2 xargs echo sed -e  s  s      xargs -n 1 git log --summary

User · Answer

As  mipadi points out  you can use git show  COMMIT  but this also shows some headers and the commit message  If you want a straight diff  use git show --pretty format  b  COMMIT   This is  obviously not a very short hand  so I m keeping this alias in my  gitconfig       alias        sd   show --pretty format  b   This enables me to use git sd  COMMITto show diff

User · Answer

Use   git diff 15dc8     as described in the following fragment of git-rev-parse 1  manpage  or in modern git gitrevisions 7  manpage       Two  other  shorthands  for naming a set that is formed by a commit and its   parent commits exist  The r1   notation  means  all  parents  of  r1   r1     includes commit r1 but excludes all of its parents    This means that you can use 15dc8   as a shorthand for 15dc8   15dc8 anywhere in git where revisions are needed   For diff command the git diff 15dc8   15dc8 is understood as git diff 15dc8  15dc8  which means the difference between parent of commit  15dc8   and commit  15dc8    Note  the description in git-rev-parse 1  manpage talks about revision ranges  where it needs to work also for merge commits  with more than one parent  Then r1   is  r1 --not r1    i e   r1  r1 1  r1 2         Also  you can use git show COMMIT to get commit description and diff for a commit  If you want only diff  you can use git diff-tree -p COMMIT

User · Answer

Use   git diff 15dc8     as described in the following fragment of git-rev-parse 1  manpage  or in modern git gitrevisions 7  manpage       Two  other  shorthands  for naming a set that is formed by a commit and its   parent commits exist  The r1   notation  means  all  parents  of  r1   r1     includes commit r1 but excludes all of its parents    This means that you can use 15dc8   as a shorthand for 15dc8   15dc8 anywhere in git where revisions are needed   For diff command the git diff 15dc8   15dc8 is understood as git diff 15dc8  15dc8  which means the difference between parent of commit  15dc8   and commit  15dc8    Note  the description in git-rev-parse 1  manpage talks about revision ranges  where it needs to work also for merge commits  with more than one parent  Then r1   is  r1 --not r1    i e   r1  r1 1  r1 2         Also  you can use git show COMMIT to get commit description and diff for a commit  If you want only diff  you can use git diff-tree -p COMMIT

User · Answer

If you know how far back  you can try something like     Current branch vs  parent git diff HEAD  HEAD    Current branch  diff between commits 2 and 3 times back git diff HEAD 3 HEAD 2   Prior commits work something like this     Parent of HEAD git show HEAD 1    Grandparent git show HEAD 2   There are a lot of ways you can specify commits     Great grandparent git show HEAD 3   See this page for details

User · Answer

git diff 15dc8 15dce 1    1 means  parent    2  grandparent  etc

User · Answer

Many of the mentioned examples  e g  git diff 15dc8    or git diff 15dc8   15dc8  don t work if you are using zsh and have extendedglob option set  You can fix it by one of the following three ways    unsetopt extendedglob  and or remove it from  zshrc  setopt NO NOMATCH  and or set it in  zshrc  escape the caret and bang every time with a backslash  e g  git diff 15dc8

[git] How to diff a commit with its parent?

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