Git - easiest way to see diff with previous version if I have the sha

Question

A colleague of mine checked in some changes to Git, and I want to see exactly what those changes were. In other words, the diff between his check-in and its parent.

What seemed logical to me was to run this command:

git diff shaOfHisCheckIn

But this didn't work. It appears to show the diff between that SHA and my current working copy.

What's the correct command to show the diff between a given SHA and its parent?

Simon Whitaker · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-25T17:11:24.863

66

git show is your friend:

git show shaOfHisCheckIn

edited May 25 '11 at 17:11

answered May 25 '11 at 17:05

Simon Whitaker

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Thanks, that's exactly what I need, and it's easy to remember and to type. – Ryan Lundy May 25 '11 at 17:17
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You're welcome! It works for tags too by the way (`git show `) - it's a really useful command. – Simon Whitaker May 25 '11 at 17:18

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 25 '14 at 20:15

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If you want to view the diff visually in kdiff3, meld, kompare, xxdiff, tkdiff, diffuse…

git difftool --dir-diff shaOfHisCheckIn^!

git difftool --tool=meld --dir-diff shaOfHisCheckIn^!

git difftool -t meld -d shaOfHisCheckIn^!

answered Jul 25 '14 at 20:15

Denilson Sá Maia

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score 5 · Answer 3 · answered May 25 '11 at 17:09

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Try this:

git diff shaOfHisCheckIn^ shaOfHisCheckIn

or

git diff shaOfHisCheckIn{^,}

answered May 25 '11 at 17:09

Vinoth Gopi

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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered May 25 '11 at 17:03

2

git diff shaOfHisCheckIn shaOfHisCheckIn^

answered May 25 '11 at 17:03

Jonas Heidelberg

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Isn't [Vinoth Gopi's answer](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6128131/git-easiest-way-to-see-diff-with-previous-version-if-i-have-the-sha-1-hash/6128240#6128240) more appropriate (the order)? – Peter Mortensen Jul 21 '18 at 10:46

Git - easiest way to see diff with previous version if I have the sha

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