git-difftool - Show changes using common diff tools
git difftool [<options>] [<commit> [<commit>]] [--] [<path>…]
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].
Copy the modified files to a temporary location and perform a directory diff on them. This mode never prompts before launching the diff tool.
Do not prompt before launching a diff tool.
Prompt before each invocation of the diff tool. This is the default behaviour; the option is provided to override any configuration settings.
Start showing the diff for the given path, the paths before it will move to end and output.
Start showing the diff for the given path, skipping all the paths before it.
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
.
Print a list of diff tools that may be used with --tool
.
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.
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.
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
. This may be selected automatically using the configuration variable difftool.guiDefault
. The --no-gui
option can be used to override these settings. If diff.guitool
is not set, we will fallback in the order of merge.guitool
, diff.tool
, merge.tool
until a tool is found.
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.
git difftool
falls back to git mergetool
config variables when the difftool equivalents have not been defined.
Everything above this line in this section isn’t included from the git-config[1] documentation. The content that follows is the same as what’s found there:
Controls which diff tool is used by git-difftool[1]. This variable overrides the value configured in merge.tool
. The list below shows the valid built-in values. Any other value is treated as a custom diff tool and requires that a corresponding difftool.<tool>.cmd variable is defined.
Controls which diff tool is used by git-difftool[1] when the -g/--gui flag is specified. This variable overrides the value configured in merge.guitool
. The list below shows the valid built-in values. Any other value is treated as a custom diff tool and requires that a corresponding difftool.<guitool>.cmd variable is defined.
Specify the command to invoke the specified diff tool. The specified command is evaluated in shell 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.
See the --tool=<tool>
option in git-difftool[1] for more details.
Override the path for the given tool. This is useful in case your tool is not in the PATH.
Exit difftool if the invoked diff tool returns a non-zero exit status.
See the --trust-exit-code
option in git-difftool[1] for more details.
Prompt before each invocation of the diff tool.
Set true
to use the diff.guitool
by default (equivalent to specifying the --gui
argument), or auto
to select diff.guitool
or diff.tool
depending on the presence of a DISPLAY
environment variable value. The default is false
, where the --gui
argument must be provided explicitly for the diff.guitool
to be used.
Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc
Run merge conflict resolution tools to resolve merge conflicts
Get and set repository or global options
© 2012–2023 Scott Chacon and others
Licensed under the MIT License.
https://git-scm.com/docs/git-difftool