How can I get a side-by-side diff when I do "git diff"?

Asked 6/10, 2011 at 3:10 Answered 15/6, 2023 at 0:50

264

When I type git diff, I'd like to see a side-by-side diff, like with diff -y, or like to display the diff in an interactive diff tool like kdiff3. How can this be done?

Lanalanae answered 6/10, 2011 at 3:10 Comment(4)

possible duplicate of How do I view 'git diff' output with visual diff program? – Unworthy 6/10, 2011 at 3:12

Note: you have a side-by-side diff on GitHub. – Keffiyeh 4/9, 2014 at 5:22

Duplicate of How do I view 'git diff' output with my preferred diff tool/ viewer? – Sikkim 13/2, 2018 at 23:25

Damn, this is annoying that you can't do it like with diff. I better get used to reading the non-side-by-side format, which is hard for a visual person. – Triumphant 14/12, 2021 at 22:38

101

Although Git has an internal implementation of diff, you can set up an external tool instead.

There are two different ways to specify an external diff tool:

setting the GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS environment variables.
configuring the external diff tool via git config

ymattw's answer is also pretty neat, using ydiff

Try git difftool

Use git difftool instead of git diff. You'll never go back.

UPDATE to add an example usage:

Here is a link to another stackoverflow that talks about git difftool: How do I view 'git diff' output with my preferred diff tool/ viewer?

For newer versions of git, the difftool command supports many external diff tools out-of-the-box. For example vimdiff is auto supported and can be opened from the command line by:

cd /path/to/git/repo
git difftool --tool=vimdiff

Other supported external diff tools are listed via git difftool --tool-help here is an example output:

'git difftool --tool=<tool>' may be set to one of the following:
        araxis
        kompare
        vimdiff
        vimdiff2

The following tools are valid, but not currently available:
        bc3
        codecompare
        deltawalker
        diffuse
        ecmerge
        emerge
        gvimdiff
        gvimdiff2
        kdiff3
        meld
        opendiff
        tkdiff
        xxdiff

Scifi answered 6/10, 2011 at 3:11 Comment(8)

Or maybe you will go back if you get This message is displayed because 'diff.tool' is not configured.. Perhaps update answer with minimal how-to configure this thing, so that it display side-by-side diffs in terminal, which is what OP asked for? GUI tools are quite useless on remote server where you connect using ssh. – Irrepealable 22/5, 2016 at 12:4

Interesting point, though I don't think I've personally ever needed to use git while SSH'd. Once of the nice things about DVCS is the Distributed part: at least in my environments it's never a hassle to locally clone whatever repo I want to poke around. – Scifi 22/5, 2016 at 14:39

At least in my config, git difftool with vimdiff doesn't always line up the two files/buffers correctly. – Hofuf 23/4, 2017 at 0:46

Thats nice, and so down below in the answer list :O I use git difftool -y to prevent tkdiff prompt – Prong 13/6, 2017 at 3:6

Related: make meld your git difftool in Windows & Linux: https://mcmap.net/q/12247/-git-mergetool-with-meld-on-windows – Bradwell 20/9, 2019 at 18:41

We need command line diffing for other reasons, like over plaintext chat when collaborating (e.g. a code review) or when doing something over ssh. – Triumphant 10/6, 2021 at 0:9

Related: open all differences at once instead of serially by using dir-diff option: https://mcmap.net/q/12824/-git-difftool-open-all-diff-files-immediately-not-in-serial – Ascendant 14/4, 2023 at 18:39

Just a heads-up that the list of Available tools seems to be based on certain app names being in $PATH. "Araxis" is a tool for Windows and Mac whose name in the shell is compare. compare also happens to be a program included with ImageMagick on Linux, so if you've never heard of Araxis and see it on your machine you probably don't actually have it and passing it to --tool= will do nothing. – Joachima 7/7, 2023 at 21:0

101

Although Git has an internal implementation of diff, you can set up an external tool instead.

There are two different ways to specify an external diff tool:

setting the GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS environment variables.
configuring the external diff tool via git config

ymattw's answer is also pretty neat, using ydiff

See also:

https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Customizing-Git-Git-Configuration
git diff --help
http://www.pixelbeat.org/programming/diffs/

When doing a git diff, Git checks both the settings of above environment variables and its .gitconfig file.

By default, Git passes the following seven arguments to the diff program:

path  old-file  old-hex old-mode  new-file  new-hex new-mode

Let's say you put your wrapper-script under ~/scripts/my_diff.sh:

#!/bin/bash
# un-comment one diff tool you'd like to use

# use standard diff command with options: (2023)
/usr/bin/diff -y "$2" "$5" 

# side-by-side diff with custom options:
# /usr/bin/sdiff -w200 -l "$2" "$5" 

# using kdiff3 as the side-by-side diff:
# /usr/bin/kdiff3 "$2" "$5"

# using Meld 
/usr/bin/meld "$2" "$5"

# using VIM
# /usr/bin/vim -d "$2" "$5"

you then need to make that script executable:

chmod a+x ~/scripts/my_diff.sh

you then need to tell Git how and where to find your custom diff wrapper script. You have three choices how to do that: (I prefer editing the .gitconfig file)

Using GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF, GIT_DIFF_OPTS

e.g. in your .bashrc or .bash_profile file you can set:
```
 GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF=$HOME/scripts/my_diff.sh
 export GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF
```
Using git config

use "git config" to define where your wrapper script can be found:
```
 git config --global diff.external ~/scripts/my_diff.sh
```
Editing your ~/.gitconfig file

you can edit your ~/.gitconfig file to add these lines:
```
 [diff]
   external = ~/scripts/my_diff.sh
```

Note:

Similarly to installing your custom diff tool, you can also install a custom merge-tool, which could be a visual merging tool to better help visualizing the merge. (see the progit.org page)

See: http://fredpalma.com/518/visual-diff-and-merge-tool/ and https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Customizing-Git-Git-Configuration

Trilinear answered 6/10, 2011 at 3:14 Comment(5)

Does this retain git terminal coloring? – Triumphant 31/7, 2013 at 20:19

This is great, but it launches a new viewer for every file. Any way to create a consolidated diff in, say, meld? – Petuntse 12/11, 2013 at 18:11

@Trilinear I am getting error for vim as im: Warning: Output is not to a terminal – Bohi 25/5, 2017 at 10:31

I don't want to vote this answer down. But the answer from ymattw was very easy to implement. – Usia 7/8, 2020 at 19:20

You can also try git diff --word-diff. It's not exactly side-by-side, but somehow better, so you might prefer it to your actual side-by-side need.

Pathos answered 11/11, 2013 at 12:1 Comment(6)

This is the easiest way. What's even better is git diff --word-diff=color – Abvolt 14/8, 2014 at 10:42

@Abvolt --word-diff=color gives me an invalid option error. Which version was it introduced in? – Taproom 14/10, 2014 at 16:3

@Trengot I run git 1.7.9 which is from 02/2012 – Abvolt 15/10, 2014 at 9:19

@Abvolt default installed version here is 1.7.1. Could explain the difference. git diff --color-words does work. – Taproom 15/10, 2014 at 10:5

Yes, git diff --color-words is the way to go on modern git versions. – Webster 13/1, 2017 at 13:22

Somehow better, not very poetic, but accurate! – Fatally 6/10, 2021 at 19:36

ydiff

Formerly called cdiff, this tool can display side by side, incremental, and colorful diff.

Instead of doing git diff, do:

ydiff -s -w0

This will launch ydiff in side-by-side display mode for each of the files with differences.

Install with:

python3 -m pip install --user ydiff

-or-

brew install ydiff

For git log, you can use:

ydiff -ls -w0

-w0 auto-detects your terminal width. See the ydiff GitHub repository page for detail and demo.

Tested in Git 2.18.0, ydiff 1.1.

Cultigen answered 1/2, 2013 at 15:14 Comment(5)

@RyneEverett: Can you explain how to do the equivalent of git diff | cdiff -s with icdiff? – Noach 7/1, 2019 at 9:51

Just run ydiff -s from a git/svn/hg workspace, you don't have to pipe in. – Cultigen 8/1, 2019 at 14:13

if you want to limit the diff to a specific file through Git's history, cd <git repo> and then run ydiff -ls <path/to/file> – Rainproof 16/1, 2020 at 17:47

I installed it with pip, but still I the the command ydiff on the console not found, because it is intalled as ~/.local/bin/ydiff – Maybellemayberry 19/5, 2023 at 9:47

the ydiff does not work for me – Trilinear 9/12, 2023 at 21:20

You can do a side-by-side diff using sdiff as follows:

$ git difftool -y -x sdiff  HEAD^ | less

where HEAD^ is an example that you should replace with whatever you want to diff against.

I found this solution here where there are a couple of other suggestions also. However, this one answer's the OP's question succinctly and clearly.

See the man git-difftool for an explanation of the arguments.

Taking the comments on board, you can create a handy git sdiff command by writing the following executable script:

#!/bin/sh
git difftool -y -x "sdiff -w $(tput cols)" "${@}" | less

Save it as /usr/bin/git-sdiff and chmod +x it. Then you'll be able to do this:

$ git sdiff HEAD^

Extra Tip

As suggested in comments you can use icdiff to do what sdiff does with colored output:

$ more /usr/bin/git-sdiff
#!/bin/sh
git difftool -y -x "icdiff --cols $(tput cols)" "${@}" | less --raw-control-chars

Softhearted answered 30/8, 2016 at 10:57 Comment(0)

For unix, combining just git and the built-in diff:

git show HEAD:path/to/file | diff -y - path/to/file

Of course, you can replace HEAD with any other git reference, and you probably want to add something like -W 170 to the diff command.

This assumes that you are just comparing your directory contents with a past commit. Comparing between two commits is more complex. If your shell is bash you can use "process substitution":

diff -y -W 170 <(git show REF1:path/to/file) <(git show REF2:path/to/file)

where REF1 and REF2 are git references – tags, branches or hashes.

Vespid answered 7/5, 2018 at 18:49 Comment(1)

Thanks -- your command 'git show HEAD:path/to/file' was what I needed to come up with my own solution, 'vimdfiff <(git show HEAD:path/to/file) path/to/file'. The bits still aren't lined up correctly, but that's the best solution I've got right now. – Idocrase 30/4, 2019 at 17:28

I recently implemented a tool that does exactly this: https://github.com/banga/git-split-diffs

Here's how to use it:

npm install -g git-split-diffs

git config --global core.pager "git-split-diffs --color | less -RFX"

And this is how it looks in your terminal (with the default theme):

As you can see, it also supports syntax highlighting and highlighting changed words within lines

Pervasive answered 10/5, 2021 at 2:58 Comment(4)

wow. this tool is so great. thanks man for this awesomeness! – Febrific 4/9, 2021 at 13:22

but its a little bit slow, takes 2 seconds to load just a file – Febrific 4/9, 2021 at 13:43

There are some notes on performance at github.com/banga/git-split-diffs#performance, but if this seems different, it would be great if you could file an issue. Thanks! – Pervasive 11/9, 2021 at 3:17

This was perfect! Thank you! Works great when I run git diff --staged – Endsley 17/5, 2023 at 17:36

export GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF='meld $2 $5; echo >/dev/null'

then simply:

git diff

Okajima answered 12/10, 2012 at 8:22 Comment(3)

`meld .' works too! And it shows all of the changes in a consolidated window. – Petuntse 12/11, 2013 at 18:19

@Petuntse that works perfectly! So simple and practical :) – Niece 27/9, 2016 at 23:34

meld works also quite good with XQartz-X-Display-Redirect. (Debian to macOS) – Whangee 15/2, 2023 at 10:18

If you'd like to see side-by-side diffs in a browser without involving GitHub, you might enjoy git webdiff, a drop-in replacement for git diff:

$ pip install webdiff
$ git webdiff

This offers a number of advantages over traditional GUI difftools like tkdiff in that it can give you syntax highlighting and show image diffs.

Read more about it here.

Bummer answered 20/11, 2014 at 20:43 Comment(0)

I use colordiff.

On Mac OS X, install it with

$ sudo port install colordiff

On Linux is possibly apt get install colordiff or something like that, depending on your distro.

Then:

$ git difftool --extcmd="colordiff -ydw" HEAD^ HEAD

Or create an alias

$ git alias diffy "difftool --extcmd=\"colordiff -ydw\""

Then you can use it

$ git diffy HEAD^ HEAD

I called it "diffy" because diff -y is the side-by-side diff in unix. Colordiff also adds colors, that are nicer. In the option -ydw, the y is for the side-by-side, the w is to ignore whitespaces, and the d is to produce the minimal diff (usually you get a better result as diff)

Woodhead answered 17/7, 2014 at 14:5 Comment(4)

add -y to skip the Launch 'colordiff' [Y/n]: prompt. – Wenwenceslaus 10/8, 2014 at 7:17

are you sure it is git alias diffy "difftool --extcmd=\"colordiff -ydw\""? Shouldn't it be git config --global alias.diffy "difftool --extcmd=\"colordiff -ydw\"" ? – Flews 7/4, 2020 at 6:15

Please correct to apt install colordiff or apt-get install colordiff, apt get install colordiff is not working. – Whangee 15/2, 2023 at 10:2

Got dynamic width working using this: git difftool -y -x 'colordiff -y --width=$(tput cols) --tabsize=4 --expand-tabs --ignore-all-space' HEAD~1 - HEAD~1 is just an example, and I'm sure someone can create an alias or a script from that. – Phonology 4/4 at 2:17

I personally really like icdiff !

If you're on Mac OS X with HomeBrew, just do brew install icdiff.

To get the file labels correctly, plus other cool features, I have in my ~/.gitconfig:

[pager]
    difftool = true
[diff]
    tool = icdiff
[difftool "icdiff"]
    cmd = icdiff --head=5000 --highlight --line-numbers -L \"$BASE\" -L \"$REMOTE\" \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\"

And I use it like: git difftool

Bedraggled answered 29/10, 2015 at 13:45 Comment(0)

This question showed up when I was searching for a fast way to use git builtin way to locate differences. My solution criteria:

Fast startup, needed builtin options
Can handle many formats easily, xml, different programming languages
Quickly identify small code changes in big textfiles

I found this answer to get color in git.

To get side by side diff instead of line diff I tweaked mb14's excellent answer on this question with the following parameters:

$ git diff --word-diff-regex="[A-Za-z0-9. ]|[^[:space:]]"

If you do not like the extra [- or {+ the option --word-diff=color can be used.

$ git diff --word-diff-regex="[A-Za-z0-9. ]|[^[:space:]]" --word-diff=color

That helped to get proper comparison with both json and xml text and java code.

In summary the --word-diff-regex options has a helpful visibility together with color settings to get a colorized side by side source code experience compared to the standard line diff, when browsing through big files with small line changes.

Appetizing answered 20/7, 2015 at 12:27 Comment(0)

Use delta.

In your gitconfig file (usually ~/.gitconfig or ~/.config/git/config),

add:

[core]
  pager = delta --light --side-by-side

Beef answered 21/3, 2023 at 5:55 Comment(0)

Open Intellij IDEA, select a single or multiple commits in the "Version Control" tool window, browse changed files, and double click them to inspect changes side by side for each file.

With the bundled command-line launcher you can bring IDEA up anywhere with a simple idea some/path

Snatchy answered 5/12, 2017 at 15:29 Comment(0)

Here's an approach. If you pipe through less, the xterm width is set to 80, which ain't so hot. But if you proceed the command with, e.g. COLS=210, you can utilize your expanded xterm.

gitdiff()
{
    local width=${COLS:-$(tput cols)}
    GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF="diff -yW$width \$2 \$5; echo >/dev/null" git diff "$@"
}

Adlai answered 27/6, 2016 at 9:14 Comment(1)

Funny. I signed by name with a pseudonym but that was ignored... Thanks for outing me, Stack Overflow. :( – Adlai 27/6, 2016 at 9:15

Several others already mentioned cdiff for git side-by-side diffing but no one gave a full implementation of it.

Setup cdiff:

git clone https://github.com/ymattw/cdiff.git
cd cdiff
ln -s `pwd`/cdiff ~/bin/cdiff
hash -r # refresh your PATH executable in bash (or 'rehash' if you use tcsh)
        # or just create a new terminal

Edit ~/.gitconfig inserting these lines:

[pager]
        diff = false
        show = false

[diff]
        tool = cdiff
        external = "cdiff -s $2 $5 #"

[difftool "cdiff"]
        cmd = cdiff -s \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\"

[alias]
        showw = show --ext-dif

The pager off is needed for cdiff to work with Diff, it is essentially a pager anyway so this is fine. Difftool will work regardless of these settings.

The show alias is needed because git show only supports external diff tools via argument.

The '#' at the end of the diff external command is important. Git's diff command appends a $@ (all available diff variables) to the diff command, but we only want the two filenames. So we call out those two explicitly with $2 and $5, and then hide the $@ behind a comment which would otherwise confuse sdiff. Resulting in an error that looks like:

fatal: <FILENAME>: no such path in the working tree
Use 'git <command> -- <path>...' to specify paths that do not exist locally.

Git commands that now produce side-by-side diffing:

git diff <SHA1> <SHA2> 
git difftool <SHA1> <SHA2>
git showw <SHA>

Cdiff usage:

'SPACEBAR' - Advances the page of the current file.
'Q'        - Quits current file, thus advancing you to the next file.

You now have side-by-side diff via git diff and difftool. And you have the cdiff python source code for power user customization should you need it.

Devine answered 2/2, 2018 at 6:23 Comment(0)

This may be a somewhat limited solution, but does the job using the system's diff command without external tools:

diff -y  <(git show from-rev:the/file/path) <(git show to-rev:the/file/path)

filter just the change lines use --suppress-common-lines (if your diff supports the option).
no colors in this case, just the usual diff markers
can tweak the column width --width=term-width; in Bash can get the width as $COLUMNS or tput cols.

This can be wrapped into a helper git-script too for more convenience, for example, usage like this:

git diffy the/file/path --from rev1 --to rev2

Fortney answered 18/7, 2020 at 19:27 Comment(0)

There are multiple solutions:

Solution 1 : Meld :

Install meld (in ubuntu I used sudo apt install meld). Then configure it like bellow.

git config --global diff.tool meld
git config --global difftool.meld.path "$(which meld)"
git config --global difftool.prompt false

git config --global merge.tool meld
git config --global mergetool.meld.path "$(which meld)"

Solution 2 : Delta :

If you decide to use cli, then install delta. The config I use is:

git config --global core.pager 'delta'
git config --global interactive.diffFilter 'delta --color-only'
git config --global delta.side-by-side true
git config --global delta.line-numbers true
git config --global delta.syntax-theme 'Solarized (dark)'

Solution 3 : Melt :

You can also use Melt. It's syntax highlighting is done with bat. This is also a cli tool.

Kiernan answered 15/6, 2023 at 0:50 Comment(0)

There are a lot of good answers on this thread. My solution for this issue was to write a script.

Name this 'git-scriptname' (and make it executable and put it in your PATH, like any script), and you can invoke it like a normal git command by running

$ git scriptname

The actual functionality is just the last line. Here's the source:

#!/usr/bin/env zsh
#
#   Show a side-by-side diff of a particular file how it currently exists between:
#       * the file system
#       * in HEAD (latest committed changes)

function usage() {
    cat <<-HERE
    USAGE

    $(basename $1) <file>

    Show a side-by-side diff of a particular file between the current versions:

        * on the file system (latest edited changes)
        * in HEAD (latest committed changes)

HERE
}

if [[ $# = 0 ]]; then
    usage $0
    exit
fi

file=$1
diff -y =(git show HEAD:$file) $file | pygmentize -g | less -R

Trumpeter answered 2/1, 2016 at 20:10 Comment(0)

Hot tags

Godot Unity Godot Help Programming Godot 4.X GUI GDScript 3D 2D Physics CSharp Godot 3.X VR XR Projects C++

Try git difftool

UPDATE to add an example usage:

Extra Tip

Recommended topics

Hot tags