Description
With no argument, shows every uncommitted change: the working tree, staged or not, compared with the last commit. With a commit, shows the change that commit introduced, compared with its first parent.
Each file starts with its path, and each hunk with its position. Lines have two number columns, the line number before and after the change. In a terminal, removed lines are red, added lines are green, and the words that changed within a line are highlighted. When the output isn't a terminal, or NO_COLOR is set, lines are marked with - and + instead. Three lines of unchanged context are shown around each change. Binary files are reported but not shown.
<commit> can be anything that names a commit: a full or short commit id, a branch or tag name, or an expression like HEAD~2.
Options
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
<commit> |
The commit whose change to show. Omit to show uncommitted changes. |
JSON output
Pass --json for stable, scripting-friendly output:
| Field | Type | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
files |
array | Changed files, each with path, status, binary, and hunks. |
Nested fields include files[].status (added, modified, deleted, and so on), hunks[].lines[].kind (context, add, or del), line numbers on old and new, and segments with optional emphasis on intra-line changes.
Markdown output
Each changed file is introduced with a level-2 heading on stdout, followed by a diff-fenced patch.