SYNOPSIS
git difftool [<options>] [<commit> [<commit>]] [--] [<path>…]
DESCRIPTION
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).
OPTIONS
- -d
- --dir-diff
-
Copy the modified files to a temporary location and perform a directory diff on them. This mode never prompts before launching the diff tool.
- -y
- --no-prompt
-
Do not prompt before launching a diff tool.
- --prompt
-
Prompt before each invocation of the diff tool. This is the default behaviour; the option is provided to override any configuration settings.
- --rotate-to=<file>
-
Start showing the diff for the given path, the paths before it will move to end and output.
- --skip-to=<file>
-
Start showing the diff for the given path, skipping all the paths before it.
- -t <tool>
- --tool=<tool>
-
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 variablediff.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 settingdifftool.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 thediff.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
. - --tool-help
-
Print a list of diff tools that may be used with
--tool
. - --[no-]symlinks
-
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. - -x <command>
- --extcmd=<command>
-
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. - -g
- --[no-]gui
-
When git-difftool is invoked with the
-g
or--gui
option the default diff tool will be read from the configureddiff.guitool
variable instead ofdiff.tool
. This may be selected automatically using the configuration variabledifftool.guiDefault
. The--no-gui
option can be used to override these settings. Ifdiff.guitool
is not set, we will fallback in the order ofmerge.guitool
,diff.tool
,merge.tool
until a tool is found. - --[no-]trust-exit-code
-
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.
CONFIGURATION
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:
- diff.tool
-
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. - diff.guitool
-
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. - difftool.<tool>.cmd
-
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. - difftool.<tool>.path
-
Override the path for the given tool. This is useful in case your tool is not in the PATH.
- difftool.trustExitCode
-
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. - difftool.prompt
-
Prompt before each invocation of the diff tool.
- difftool.guiDefault
-
Set
true
to use thediff.guitool
by default (equivalent to specifying the--gui
argument), orauto
to selectdiff.guitool
ordiff.tool
depending on the presence of aDISPLAY
environment variable value. The default isfalse
, where the--gui
argument must be provided explicitly for thediff.guitool
to be used.
SEE ALSO
- git-diff(1)
-
Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc
- git-mergetool(1)
-
Run merge conflict resolution tools to resolve merge conflicts
- git-config(1)
-
Get and set repository or global options
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite