How can I see the changes in a Git commit?

Question

When I do git diff COMMIT I see the changes between that commit and HEAD (as far as I know), but I would like to see the changes that were made by that single commit.

I haven't found any obvious options on diff / log that will give me that output.

possible duplicate of [Shorthand for diff of git commit with its parent?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/436362/shorthand-for-diff-of-git-commit-with-its-parent) — Chris Maes, Mar 10 '15 at 15:54

score 2765 · Accepted Answer · edited May 16 '21 at 12:22

2765

To see the diff for a particular COMMIT hash, where COMMIT is the hash of the commit:

git diff COMMIT~ COMMIT will show you the difference between that COMMIT's ancestor and the COMMIT. See the man pages for git diff for details about the command and gitrevisions about the ~ notation and its friends.

Alternatively, git show COMMIT will do something very similar. (The commit's data, including its diff - but not for merge commits.) See the git show manpage.

(also git diff COMMIT will show you the difference between that COMMIT and the head.)

edited May 16 '21 at 12:22

yaya

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answered Jul 10 '13 at 06:23

Nevik Rehnel

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Note that the `^` needs to be quoted in the Thomson and Bourne shells (synonym for `|` there) and `rc` and its derivatives (caret operator) and in `zsh` with extendedglob enabled (`not` globbing operator) – Stephane Chazelas Mar 24 '14 at 14:34
1

This doesnt work anymore. git diff HEAD^ HEAD doesn't show anything. – user3690202 Jun 07 '15 at 17:16
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@user3690202, yes it does. If the diff doesn't show anything, it means the diff is empty (there's no difference between `HEAD^` and `HEAD`). This can especially be the case when you do things like ignoring whitespace, or if you simply have to identical commits. – Nevik Rehnel Jun 09 '15 at 11:32
There was definitely a non-whitespace commit there - I know because I just committed it literally 5 minutes before trying to view what I committed. There must be some other situations where this doesn't work. – user3690202 Jun 09 '15 at 19:07
@user3690202, if that continues to be a problem (or just interests you), you should open a new question describing your situation in detail and trying to reproduce it ;) – Nevik Rehnel Jun 10 '15 at 06:35
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Note that `HEAD^` implies first parent in case a commit has multiple parents (ie merge commit). – Mansour Nov 15 '15 at 21:19
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`git diff COMMIT~ COMMIT` works for me, notice the tilde instead of caret. I'm running git version 2.6.1.windows.1 on Windows 10. – Juuso Ohtonen Nov 24 '15 at 10:58
"git show COMMIT" didn't work for me, but "git show $COMMIT" did. I think this is a typo in the answer? – tradetree May 01 '16 at 20:11
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@tradetree: the word COMMIT is supposed to be replaced with the name of some commit, e.g. the SHA sum. – Nick Matteo May 12 '16 at 19:00
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I feel like git show is more appropriate for this question and should be the suggestion mentioned first. – pypmannetjies Oct 12 '16 at 12:00
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If using bash, `COMMIT^ COMMIT` can be abbreviated as `COMMIT{^,}`. – Lauri Nurmi Jan 12 '17 at 10:34
@JuusoOhtonen In theory a single `^` would do the same thing as a single `~`, but I believe you need to put quotes around the `^` as Stephane suggested. That's what I found to be the case when running git from the Windows command prompt. – Tim Goodman Jan 19 '17 at 19:31
You can also extend this command with file specification (for example to exclude fixture files): `git diff COMMITID^ COMMITID *.yml` <--- shows only changed yml files – Franziska Mar 07 '17 at 10:14
1

This answer contains too much obscuring information (long introduction about `git diff` which already known by author) – Daniel Garmoshka May 01 '17 at 10:29
There should be command `git diff COMMIT^` (literal). Nobody cares what the most recent commit hash is. – Jari Turkia Jun 02 '21 at 09:32
Note that there is no way to show only diff by `git show`. If you want to output only diff, use `git diff`. – Weihang Jian Nov 10 '21 at 02:14
I'm trying to run these commands on a GitHub action that uses Ubuntu, and it doesn't like `git diff $GITHUB_SHA^ $GITHUB_SHA`. It gives the error: `fatal: ambiguous argument '^': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.` I've also tried with the ~. Any ideas on how to get this to work in a Github action workflow? – transposeglobal Feb 09 '22 at 00:10
*NB:* `git show` does not work for stash commits--frustratingly, it only shows the name of the commit but not the file changes. `git diff COMMIT~ COMMIT` works for stash commits. – Jonathan Benn Dec 01 '22 at 20:14

score 665 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 07 '21 at 23:20

As mentioned in "Shorthand for diff of git commit with its parent?", you can also use git diff with:

git diff COMMIT^!

or

git diff-tree -p COMMIT

With git show, you would need (in order to focus on diff alone) to do:

git show --color --pretty=format:%b COMMIT

The COMMIT parameter is a commit-ish:

A commit object or an object that can be recursively dereferenced to a commit object. The following are all commit-ishes: a commit object, a tag object that points to a commit object, a tag object that points to a tag object that points to a commit object, etc.

See gitrevision "SPECIFYING REVISIONS" to reference a commit-ish.
See also "What does tree-ish mean in Git?".

score 602 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 02 '17 at 23:07

602

You can also try this easy way:

git show <COMMIT>

edited Jul 02 '17 at 23:07

Reggie Pinkham

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answered Jun 15 '16 at 09:02

Lakhan

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It seems this does something quite different – Miserable Variable Jun 20 '18 at 18:01
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It only shows the commit message. Not the diff of the code changes applied for this commit. – k0pernikus Sep 10 '19 at 17:06
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Sometimes, this command shows the commit message. – alfredo Mar 14 '22 at 00:48
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For me with git version 2.32.0, I see both the commit message as well as the file diffs/changes from the previous commit (just like the accepted answer does). To be clear, `git show c411d33e` shows both commit message and file changes and `git diff c411d33e~ c411d33e` shows just the file changes. In both cases changes file changes shown are from the commits ancestor. – PatS Jul 14 '22 at 20:52
yeah it will only show the log meta-data if it was a rebase or merge i think. use the commit hash in the message if it's there for useful analysis – nate Oct 20 '22 at 19:13
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@k0pernikus If you're **not getting the diff** it may be a merge commit. You need `git show --diff-merges=on` in this case. – c z Nov 25 '22 at 10:21

score 119 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 11 '21 at 09:23

119

git show shows the changes made in the most recent commit. It is equivalent to git show HEAD.

git show HEAD~1 takes you back one commit.

edited Apr 11 '21 at 09:23

Peter Mortensen

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answered Sep 16 '16 at 01:50

Adam Salma

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score 71 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 03 '19 at 11:53

71

I usually do:

git diff HEAD~1

To show the changes regarding the last commit. If you have more commits just increase the number 1 to how many commits diff you want to see.

answered Apr 03 '19 at 11:53

Zioalex

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To show the changes of the last commit, simply use `git show` ;) – xeruf Mar 25 '21 at 16:02
@xeruf that does only shows the commit message for me. – codemonkey May 29 '23 at 11:57

Iwnnay · Answer 6 · 2021-04-13T23:18:01.210

64

Use:

git show <commit_sha>

This will show you just what's in that commit. You can do a range by just putting a space between the two commit SHA-1 hashes.

git show <beginning_sha> <ending_sha>

which is pretty helpful if you're rebasing often because your feature logs will all be in a row.

If you happen to want to look at the last 3 commits you can use the HEAD syntax

git show HEAD~3 HEAD

edited Apr 13 '21 at 23:18

answered Aug 22 '18 at 14:46

Iwnnay

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Is a SHA-1 hash the only possibility (not a rhetorical question)? What about, e.g., `HEAD~3`? – Peter Mortensen Apr 11 '21 at 09:37
Yes, you could use something like `git show HEAD~3 HEAD` It's a little clunkier than other git commands, but it works. – Iwnnay Apr 13 '21 at 23:13

score 46 · Answer 7 · answered Jul 21 '21 at 17:48

46

For me this works just fine

git show COMMIT --compact-summary

Which shows the next information

Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as file creations or deletions ("new" or "gone", optionally "+l" if it’s a symlink) and mode changes ("+x" or "-x" for adding or removing executable bit respectively) in diffstat. The information is put between the filename part and the graph part. Implies --stat.

answered Jul 21 '21 at 17:48

Pepe Alvarez

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Upvoted because this was actually what I was looking for. I stumbled onto this question because "see changes in commit" can mean a few different things. I wanted to see the files that changed, not actually what changed in them. Keep reading for very good answers to seeing _what changed in the file_. – Andrew Falanga Dec 29 '21 at 21:04
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Great answer. Like the output format of this command. – Binita Bharati Apr 29 '22 at 07:58
Here it says: fatal: unrecognized argument: --compact-summary – AG_HIHI Jul 07 '22 at 09:28
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@AG_HIHI It sounds to me that your git version does not have that option, you can check here: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-show Search the documentation for your specific git version if the option argument --compact-summary is available, if not, then upgrade to a newer one. – Pepe Alvarez Jul 07 '22 at 17:01

score 42 · Answer 8 · edited Jul 19 '18 at 20:34

42

First get the commit ID using,

git log #to list all

Or

git log -p -1 #last one commit id

Copy commit id.

Now we use two methods to list changes from a specific commit,

Method 1:

git diff commit_id^! #commit id something like this 1c6a6000asad012

Method 2:

git show commit_id
For example: git show 1c6a600a

edited Jul 19 '18 at 20:34

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jul 19 '17 at 05:48

Mohideen bin Mohammed

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What does the `^!` mean?? – Martín Coll Dec 20 '17 at 18:31
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^! is the shorthand for commit^..commit which means will exclude all parents and check diff in that commit – Mohideen bin Mohammed Dec 21 '17 at 07:27
I'm not an expert but I have a case (with multiple branches being involved) where git log c^! is not exactly the same as git log c^..c. In fact it's much better: git log c^..c listed too many entries while git log c^! did the right thing, so this is what I was looking for for a long time – user829755 Apr 03 '18 at 09:16

score 31 · Answer 9 · 2014-06-26T16:00:58.867

31

From the man page for git-diff(1):

git diff [options] [<commit>] [--] [<path>…]
git diff [options] --cached [<commit>] [--] [<path>…]
git diff [options] <commit> <commit> [--] [<path>…]
git diff [options] <blob> <blob>
git diff [options] [--no-index] [--] <path> <path>

Use the 3rd one in the middle:

git diff [options] <parent-commit> <commit>

Also from the same man page, at the bottom, in the Examples section:

$ git diff HEAD^ HEAD      <3>

Compare the version before the last commit and the last commit.

Admittedly it's worded a little confusingly, it would be less confusing as

Compare the most recent commit with the commit before it.

edited Jun 26 '14 at 16:00

answered Jul 10 '13 at 07:20

3

Your rewording would apply to `git diff HEAD HEAD^`. – Richard Jun 26 '14 at 15:56
git diff HEAD^ HEAD doesn't display any changes. – user3690202 Jun 07 '15 at 17:16
@user3690202 so that implies that there aren't any changes to display. Is that actually the case? – Jun 08 '15 at 02:39
How can there not be any changes to display? If you want to view the last commit, surely unless it is a completely new repository there will be some changes to display? – user3690202 Jun 09 '15 at 19:06
@user3690202 it's possible to make an "empty commit" with Git that doesn't actually contain any changes from the parent, although there is a built-in safeguard that checks for and prevents this, though it is overridable with a command line option. I doubt that you would intentionally create an empty commit, so another possibility is that you somehow have pre-commit line-ending conversion on (or other funny whitespace stuff) that is tricking Git into thinking that no changes have actually been made. What platform are you running Git on? – Jun 10 '15 at 00:21
@user3690202 use "": `git diff "HEAD^" HEAD`, worked for me – MartenBE Nov 06 '15 at 14:41

score 27 · Answer 10 · edited Jul 19 '18 at 20:30

27

The following seems to do the job; I use it to show what has been brought in by a merge.

git whatchanged -m -n 1 -p <SHA-1 hash of merge commit>

edited Jul 19 '18 at 20:30

Peter Mortensen

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answered Oct 14 '14 at 17:16

MichaelMoser

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Would that work too with `git log`? (because of http://stackoverflow.com/a/18585297/6309) – VonC Oct 14 '14 at 17:52
git log --name-only - for listing the changed files. Or git log --name-status --find-renames - to get the list of changed files with the kind of change (added/modified/renamed, etc) – MichaelMoser Jan 29 '21 at 01:31
Something I learned today. Thanks! **Official DESCRIPTION** ` Shows commit logs and diff output each commit introduces.` New users are encouraged to use git-log(1) instead. The whatchanged command is essentially the same as git-log(1) but defaults to show the raw format diff output and to skip merges. The command is kept primarily for historical reasons; fingers of many people who learned Git long before git log was invented by reading Linux kernel mailing list are trained to type it.` – Kesavan Muthuvel Aug 22 '23 at 17:11

score 23 · Answer 11 · edited Dec 29 '19 at 06:23

23

Another possibility:

git log -p COMMIT -1

edited Dec 29 '19 at 06:23

frogatto

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answered Feb 16 '16 at 14:49

John_West

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score 16 · Answer 12 · edited Jul 19 '18 at 20:34

16

I like the below command to compare a specific commit and its last commit:

git diff <commit-hash>^-

Example:

git diff cd1b3f485^-

edited Jul 19 '18 at 20:34

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 10 '18 at 10:11

starcwl

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Irshu · Answer 13 · 2018-09-27T02:52:59.593

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You could use git diff HEAD HEAD^1 to see the diff with the parent commit.

If you only want to see the list of files, add the --stat option.

edited Sep 27 '18 at 02:52

answered Dec 08 '15 at 04:17

Irshu

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This is what you mean, git diff HEAD^1 HEAD – Shibir Basak Sep 26 '18 at 11:34
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Note that this will show what you added as removed, as it will do a reverse comparison. The way you should read the `diff` command is: what would I need to change in the file to get from commit `HEAD` to commit `HEAD^1`? – brainplot Jan 25 '19 at 00:34

score 11 · Answer 14 · edited Apr 11 '21 at 09:21

11

git difftool COMMIT^ <commit hash>

is also possible if you have configured your difftool.

See here how to configure difftool. Or the manual page here.

Additionally, you can use git diff-tree --no-commit-id --name-only -r <commit hash> to see which files been changed/committed in a give commit hash.

edited Apr 11 '21 at 09:21

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 24 '14 at 12:49

Chand Priyankara

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IMO `git difftool -d` is more usable than plain `git difftool`. – ks1322 Jul 18 '22 at 14:21

score 10 · Answer 15 · edited Apr 11 '21 at 09:22

10

To see author and time by commit, use git show COMMIT. Which will result in something like this:

commit 13414df70354678b1b9304ebe4b6d204810f867e
Merge: a2a2894 3a1ba8f
Author: You <you@you.com>
Date:   Fri Jul 24 17:46:42 2015 -0700

     Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/your-feature'

If you want to see which files had been changed, run the following with the values from the Merge line above, git diff --stat a2a2894 3a1ba8f.

If you want to see the actual diff, run git --stat a2a2894 3a1ba8f.

edited Apr 11 '21 at 09:22

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jul 27 '15 at 22:20

Nikita R.

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"If you want to see the actual diff, run `git --stat a2a2894 3a1ba8f`". I think you mean `git diff a2a2894 3a1ba8f` or else `unknown option: --stat`. – 林果皞 Nov 21 '18 at 08:56
`git show COMMIT` already shows the changeset for normal commits. It only won't show it for merges. – Mecki Mar 26 '21 at 10:51

score 9 · Answer 16 · answered Jan 29 '19 at 19:41

For checking complete changes:

  git diff <commit_Id_1> <commit_Id_2>

For checking only the changed/added/deleted files:

  git diff <commit_Id_1> <commit_Id_2> --name-only

NOTE: For checking diff without commit in between, you don't need to put the commit ids.

score 8 · Answer 17 · answered Jan 08 '20 at 12:37

8

If you just want to see the changes in the latest commit, simply git show will give you that.

answered Jan 08 '20 at 12:37

MyrionSC2

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score 8 · Answer 18 · answered Oct 23 '20 at 04:29

8

The following code will show the current commit

git show HEAD

answered Oct 23 '20 at 04:29

jinson

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Bersan · Answer 19 · 2022-12-06T14:41:34.740

More minimalist approach for checking file changes (example)

# 1. Checkout a branch and see the list of commits
git log --oneline -5

# > Output
9b9b1f8 (HEAD -> master) Updated ABC
d58e5da chore: Added files
5a4aa2c chore: Added my pipeline
bb2b0b7 feat: Added ABC
473f711 feat: Added ZYX

# 2. Pick a commit hash and check which files were modified
git show --stat --oneline d58e5da

# > Output
d58e5da chore: Added versioning files
 Someabcfile                            | 18 ++++++++++++++++++
 myfolder/file.py                       | 19 +++++++++++++++++++
 myfolder/file.js                       |  7 +++++++
 myfolder/file.txt                      |  1 +
 4 files changed, 45 insertions(+)

# 3. Pick a file to check the differences
git show d58e5da myfolder12/file.py

Or, alternatively, check all file differences within a single commit from the list:

git show d58e5da

score 5 · Answer 20 · answered Feb 17 '22 at 07:12

A few answers miss a special case. How to view changes made by the Root Commit as it does not have a parent/ancestor.

Both

git diff <root_commit>^..<root_commit>

and

git diff <root_commit>~..<root_commit>

throw an error.

$git diff 27e521ca73a46b2d3a28568dc49fced81e46aaea~ 27e521ca73a46b2d3a28568dc49fced81e46aaea
fatal: ambiguous argument '27e521ca73a46b2d3a28568dc49fced81e46aaea~': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
Use '--' to separate paths from revisions, like this:
'git <command> [<revision>...] -- [<file>...]'

git diff <root_commit>^!

shows diff btw root commit and HEAD. Like so:

$ git diff 27e521ca73a46b2d3a28568dc49fced81e46aaea^!
diff --git a/file1.txt b/file1.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..80f3f1a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/file1.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+Create the first file.
+
+Add some placeholder text to first file.
+
+
diff --git a/file2.txt b/file2.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..66e494f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/file2.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+This is the second file.
+
+It has an uncommited commit.
+
+We use it to demo default `git diff` behaviour.
+

(These are changes made by all commits btw my root commit and HEAD).

For Root Commit

I find only

git show --color --pretty=format:%b <root_commit_hash>

works.

Like so:

$ git show --color --pretty=format:%b 27e521ca73a46b2d3a28568dc49fced81e46aaea

diff --git a/README b/README
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..12a04f0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+# git-diff-demo
+
+This repo documents the demo of the git diff command.
+We will have options, and use cases.

(My root commit added only the README)

score 4 · Answer 21 · edited Jul 19 '18 at 20:32

This command will get you the Git parent commit-hash:

git log -n 2 <commit-hash>

After that git diff-tool <commit-hash> <parent-commit-hash>

Example:

bonnie@bonnie ~/ $ git log -n 2 7f65b9a9d3820525766fcba285b3c678e889fe3

commit 7f65b9a9d3820525766fcba285b3c678e889fe3b
Author: souparno <souparno.majumder@gmail.com>
Date:   Mon Jul 25 13:17:07 2016 +0530

CSS changed to maintain the aspect ratio of the channel logos and to fit them properly.

commit c3a61f17e14e2b80cf64b172a45f1b4826ee291f
Author: souparno <souparno.majumder@gmail.com>
Date:   Mon Jul 25 11:28:09 2016 +0530

The ratio of the height to width of the channel images are maintained.

After this

git difftool 7f65b9a9d3820525766fcba285b3c678e889fe3b c3a61f17e14e2b80cf64b172a45f1b4826ee291f

score 4 · Answer 22 · edited Jul 19 '18 at 20:33

4

I'm running Git version 2.6.1.windows.1 on Windows 10, so I needed a slight modification to Nevik's answer (tilde instead of caret):

git diff COMMIT~ COMMIT

Another option is to quote the caret:

git diff "COMMIT^" COMMIT

edited Jul 19 '18 at 20:33

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jan 20 '17 at 08:00

Juuso Ohtonen

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score 4 · Answer 23 · answered Mar 03 '23 at 09:46

4

Get list of files changed in a commit:

git show --name-only commit_id

Note: Above command will not work for merge ids.

To get list of files changed in a merge commit id:

git log -m -1 --name-only commit_id

View changes in a specific file within a commit: git show commit_id:src/path/to/that/file

answered Mar 03 '23 at 09:46

Bharat Pahalwani

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it's better to use `git show commit_id -- src/path/to/that/file` to get color in output. – Eric Aug 31 '23 at 02:22

score 3 · Answer 24 · answered Dec 22 '20 at 19:45

3

It is also possible to review changes between two commits for a specific file.

git diff <commit_Id_1> <commit_Id_2> some_dir/file.txt

answered Dec 22 '20 at 19:45

Sergey Miletskiy

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`git diff on/specific/file.txt` – CallMarl Feb 12 '21 at 10:25

score 2 · Answer 25 · edited Apr 11 '21 at 09:25

2

In case of checking the source change in a graphical view, use:

gitk (your commit id goes here)

For example:

gitk HEAD~1

edited Apr 11 '21 at 09:25

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 11 '18 at 08:02

vijayakannan

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I don't understand why this answer was downvoted. I agree that command line and text based stuff is the way to go but gitk gives a lot of useful information. – ShellFish Sep 25 '19 at 13:12
2

`gitk` is not `git` it's spécifique package and it doesn't exist on every OS where `git` could be installed.`tig` is also good tools as many others. – CallMarl Feb 12 '21 at 10:32

score -4 · Answer 26 · answered Sep 22 '22 at 09:53

-4

You can click on each commit on the specific address of git to view
If you submit with a tool, you can pass show history

answered Sep 22 '22 at 09:53

yiyi

1

As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer). – Community Sep 27 '22 at 13:33
This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient [reputation](https://stackoverflow.com/help/whats-reputation) you will be able to [comment on any post](https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/comment); instead, [provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/214173/why-do-i-need-50-reputation-to-comment-what-can-i-do-instead). - [From Review](/review/late-answers/32778316) – abdo Salm Sep 28 '22 at 02:12

How can I see the changes in a Git commit?

26 Answers26

More minimalist approach for checking file changes (example)

Linked

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