git diff between two different files

169
votes

In HEAD (the latest commit), I have a file named foo. In my current working tree, I renamed it to bar, and also edited it.

I want to git diff foo in HEAD, and bar in my current working tree.

3
gitdiff
I thought this question (from the title) might be about using git diff on two files that aren't necessarily in a repo. I found that the --no-index flag is for that, e.g. git diff --no-index --word-diff old_file.txt new_file.txt (--word-diff highlights changes by word, not just line, which is super helpful for long text). - Pat

3 Answers

189
votes

Specify the paths explicitly:

git diff HEAD:full/path/to/foo full/path/to/bar

Check out the --find-renames option in the git-diff docs.

Credit: twaggs.

177
votes

I believe using --no-index is what you're looking for:

git diff [<options>] --no-index [--] <path> <path>

as mentioned in the git manual:

This form is to compare the given two paths on the filesystem. You can omit the --no-index option when running the command in a working tree controlled by Git and at least one of the paths points outside the working tree, or when running the command outside a working tree controlled by Git.

3
votes

If you are using tortoise git you can right-click on a file and git a diff by: Right-clicking on the first file and through the tortoisegit submenu select "Diff later" Then on the second file you can also right-click on this, go to the tortoisegit submenu and then select "Diff with yourfilenamehere.txt"