Go to main content

man pages section 1: User Commands

Exit Print View

Updated: July 2017
 
 

git-difftool (1)

Name

git-difftool - Show changes using common diff tools

Synopsis

git difftool [<options>] [<commit> [<commit>]] [--] [<path>...]

Description

GIT-DIFFTOOL(1)                   Git Manual                   GIT-DIFFTOOL(1)



NAME
       git-difftool - Show changes using common diff tools

SYNOPSIS
       git difftool [<options>] [<commit> [<commit>]] [--] [<path>...]


DESCRIPTION
       git difftool is a Git command that allows you to compare and edit files
       between revisions using common diff tools. git difftool is a frontend
       to git diff and accepts the same options and arguments. See git-
       diff(1).

OPTIONS
       -d, --dir-diff
           Copy the modified files to a temporary location and perform a
           directory diff on them. This mode never prompts before launching
           the diff tool.

       -y, --no-prompt
           Do not prompt before launching a diff tool.

       --prompt
           Prompt before each invocation of the diff tool. This is the default
           behaviour; the option is provided to override any configuration
           settings.

       -t <tool>, --tool=<tool>
           Use the diff tool specified by <tool>. Valid values include emerge,
           kompare, meld, and vimdiff. Run git difftool --tool-help for the
           list of valid <tool> settings.

           If a diff tool is not specified, git difftool will use the
           configuration variable diff.tool. If the configuration variable
           diff.tool is not set, git difftool will pick a suitable default.

           You can explicitly provide a full path to the tool by setting the
           configuration variable difftool.<tool>.path. For example, you can
           configure the absolute path to kdiff3 by setting
           difftool.kdiff3.path. Otherwise, git difftool assumes the tool is
           available in PATH.

           Instead of running one of the known diff tools, git difftool can be
           customized to run an alternative program by specifying the command
           line to invoke in a configuration variable difftool.<tool>.cmd.

           When git difftool is invoked with this tool (either through the -t
           or --tool option or the diff.tool configuration variable) the
           configured command line will be invoked with the following
           variables available: $LOCAL is set to the name of the temporary
           file containing the contents of the diff pre-image and $REMOTE is
           set to the name of the temporary file containing the contents of
           the diff post-image.  $MERGED is the name of the file which is
           being compared.  $BASE is provided for compatibility with custom
           merge tool commands and has the same value as $MERGED.

       --tool-help
           Print a list of diff tools that may be used with --tool.

       --[no-]symlinks
           git difftool's default behavior is create symlinks to the working
           tree when run in --dir-diff mode and the right-hand side of the
           comparison yields the same content as the file in the working tree.

           Specifying --no-symlinks instructs git difftool to create copies
           instead.  --no-symlinks is the default on Windows.

       -x <command>, --extcmd=<command>
           Specify a custom command for viewing diffs.  git-difftool ignores
           the configured defaults and runs $command $LOCAL $REMOTE when this
           option is specified. Additionally, $BASE is set in the environment.

       -g, --gui
           When git-difftool is invoked with the -g or --gui option the
           default diff tool will be read from the configured diff.guitool
           variable instead of diff.tool.

       --[no-]trust-exit-code
           git-difftool invokes a diff tool individually on each file. Errors
           reported by the diff tool are ignored by default. Use
           --trust-exit-code to make git-difftool exit when an invoked diff
           tool returns a non-zero exit code.

           git-difftool will forward the exit code of the invoked tool when
           --trust-exit-code is used.

       See git-diff(1) for the full list of supported options.

CONFIG VARIABLES
       git difftool falls back to git mergetool config variables when the
       difftool equivalents have not been defined.

       diff.tool
           The default diff tool to use.

       diff.guitool
           The default diff tool to use when --gui is specified.

       difftool.<tool>.path
           Override the path for the given tool. This is useful in case your
           tool is not in the PATH.

       difftool.<tool>.cmd
           Specify the command to invoke the specified diff tool.

           See the --tool=<tool> option above for more details.

       difftool.prompt
           Prompt before each invocation of the diff tool.

       difftool.trustExitCode
           Exit difftool if the invoked diff tool returns a non-zero exit
           status.

           See the --trust-exit-code option above for more details.


ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:


       +---------------+--------------------------+
       |ATTRIBUTE TYPE |     ATTRIBUTE VALUE      |
       +---------------+--------------------------+
       |Availability   | developer/versioning/git |
       +---------------+--------------------------+
       |Stability      | Uncommitted              |
       +---------------+--------------------------+
SEE ALSO
       git-diff(1)
           Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc

       git-mergetool(1)
           Run merge conflict resolution tools to resolve merge conflicts

       git-config(1)
           Get and set repository or global options

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite



NOTES
       This software was built from source available at
       https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland.  The original community
       source was downloaded from
       https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-2.7.4.tar.xz

       Further information about this software can be found on the open source
       community website at http://git-scm.com/.



Git 2.7.4                         03/17/2016                   GIT-DIFFTOOL(1)