How to diff one file to an arbitrary version in Git?

Question

How can I diff a file, say pom.xml, from the master branch to an arbitrary older version in Git?

score 437 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 05 '14 at 19:01

437

You can do:

git diff master~20:pom.xml pom.xml

... to compare your current pom.xml to the one from master 20 revisions ago through the first parent. You can replace master~20, of course, with the object name (SHA1sum) of a commit or any of the many other ways of specifying a revision.

Note that this is actually comparing the old pom.xml to the version in your working tree, not the version committed in master. If you want that, then you can do the following instead:

git diff master~20:pom.xml master:pom.xml

edited Jul 05 '14 at 19:01

answered Apr 07 '11 at 19:23

Mark Longair

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Note that this doesn't just work for files, it also works for (sub)directories as well, for example `git diff :foo/ HEAD:foo/`. – Jul 05 '14 at 18:59
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Also note that on windows you need to use forward slashes for directories if you are using a revision specifier or git will give you an error about the file/directory not existing in that revision. – Dylan Nissley Nov 21 '14 at 13:38
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@DylanNissley or it will give you no error and no diff. That's what I see. In any case, thank you for the hint about using forward slashes instead of backslashes. – Gary Sheppard Aug 17 '17 at 20:05
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With windows files I've found it easier to change directory and then call git diff master~20:./pom.xml ./pom.xml – lloyd Aug 24 '18 at 06:16
Some version of git require "--" between the & – Josh Apr 27 '20 at 03:36

score 184 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 07 '11 at 19:23

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git diff <revision> <path>

For example:

git diff b0d14a4 foobar.txt

answered Apr 07 '11 at 19:23

Benjamin Pollack

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does not work for version 1.7.11 if file is not in current directory. Example: 'git diff f76d078 test/Config' yields "error: Could not access 'test/f76d078'" – simpleuser Dec 04 '13 at 21:21
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@user1663987 just pass a full path relative to the project root: `git diff root/path/file`. – Jun 27 '14 at 17:23
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test/Config *is* relative to the root (as in test is a sub-directory of the root). but then your example root/path/file would seem to INCLUDE the root? – simpleuser Jun 29 '14 at 05:55

score 57 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 29 '12 at 17:18

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If you want to see the difference between the last commit of a single file you can do:

git log -p -1 filename

This will give you the diff of the file in git, is not comparing your local file.

answered Aug 29 '12 at 17:18

Gerardo

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this is not returning anything – Andrei Cristian Prodan Oct 17 '14 at 12:05
@AndreiCristianProdan Then you have no changes there. You can increment the `-1` step by step until you get the changes. – kaiser Oct 30 '14 at 11:30
This is very nice. I created a bash function that might be useful: `gitlog () { git log -${3:-p} -${2:-1} $1; }` Used like: `gitlog Rakefile` or `gitlog Rakefile 5` and `gitlog Rakefile 10 s`. The first shows one diff; the second shows five diffs; the third shows ten `--no-patch`. – auxbuss Jun 07 '18 at 13:12

score 44 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 20 '23 at 16:57

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To see what was changed in a file in the last commit:

git diff HEAD~1 -- path/to/file

You can change the number (~1) to the n-th commit which you want to diff with.

edited Apr 20 '23 at 16:57

Thomas Decaux

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answered Sep 27 '12 at 23:00

Juampy NR

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This answer is really just a specific case of [this more general answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/5586434/456814), where `HEAD~1` is substituted for ``, which makes this answer a duplicate. – Jul 17 '14 at 21:52
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this isn't working! fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD~1': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. Use '--' to separate paths from revisions – Andrei Cristian Prodan Oct 17 '14 at 12:04
This answer is simple and functional for me. – Douglas Frari May 09 '19 at 11:46
"--" separator is missing, I have just fixed – Thomas Decaux Apr 20 '23 at 16:57

score 11 · Answer 5 · edited Jan 24 '17 at 20:05

Generic Syntax :

$git diff oldCommit..newCommit -- **FileName.xml > ~/diff.txt

for all files named "FileName.xml" anywhere in your repo.

Notice the space between "--" and "**"

Answer for your question:

$git checkout master
$git diff oldCommit..HEAD -- **pom.xml 
or
$git diff oldCommit..HEAD -- relative/path/to/pom.xml

as always with git, you can use a tag/sha1/"HEAD^" to id a commit.

Tested with git 1.9.1 on Ubuntu.

CatalinBerta · Answer 6 · 2023-04-21T15:06:55.960

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git diff -w HEAD origin/master path/to/file

-w ignores whitespaces

edited Apr 21 '23 at 15:06

answered Oct 20 '14 at 09:51

CatalinBerta

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You could at least give some explanation as to what the -w flag means. Writing a solution that works is great, but I personally wouldn't use some random command without knowing what each flag in it means. – Tal Kohavy Apr 20 '23 at 12:58
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@TalKohavy You are right, I wrote that in a hurry, I have updated the answer. – CatalinBerta Apr 21 '23 at 15:07

score 8 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 20 '17 at 11:31

If neither commit is your HEAD then bash's brace expansion proves really useful, especially if your filenames are long, the example above:

git diff master~20:pom.xml master:pom.xml

Would become

git diff {master~20,master}:pom.xml

difftool between working area (what yet to be committed or staged) and latest commit:

git difftool head firmware/src/interrupt.c

or

git difftool head *interrupt.c

Note: to diff x versions before the last committed version replace "head" with head~x. For example replace "head" with "head~2" to diff between working area and 2 versions prior to the latest commit

difftool between two specific committed versions:

first get the ids for the versions you want to compare by using next line

git log --oneline

you will get a list of all your committed version. choose two and copy their id's.

enter the ids inside {}:

git difftool {2fae9e6,a21dd00} firmware/src/interrupt.c

or

git difftool {2fae9e6,a21dd00} *interrupt.c

Note: if there is no difference between the files, nothing will open. You will just get an empty line in the git bash

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Feb 29 '16 at 23:16

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If you need to diff on a single file in a stash for example you can do

git diff stash@{0} -- path/to/file

answered Feb 29 '16 at 23:16

lacostenycoder

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Schmick · Answer 14 · 2017-02-08T22:23:15.703

If you are looking for the diff on a specific commit and you want to use the github UI instead of the command line (say you want to link it to other folks), you can do:

https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/commit/<commit-sha>/<path-to-file>

For example:

https://github.com/grails/grails-core/commit/02942c5b4d832b856fbc04c186f1d02416895a7e/grails-test-suite-uber/build.gradle

Note the Previous and Next links at the top right that allow you to navigate through all the files in the commit.

This only works for a specific commit though, not for comparing between any two arbitrary versions.

How to diff one file to an arbitrary version in Git?

14 Answers14

difftool between working area (what yet to be committed or staged) and latest commit:

difftool between two specific committed versions:

Linked