git-range-diff.html - pub/scm/git/git-htmldocs - Git at Google

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 <body class="manpage">
 <div id="header">
 <h1>
 git-range-diff(1) Manual Page
 </h1>
 <h2>NAME</h2>
 <div class="sectionbody">
 <p>git-range-diff -
    Compare two commit ranges (e.g. two versions of a branch)
 </p>
 </div>
 </div>
 <div id="content">
 <div class="sect1">
 <h2 id="_synopsis">SYNOPSIS</h2>
 <div class="sectionbody">
 <div class="verseblock">
 <pre class="content"><em>git range-diff</em> [--color=[&lt;when&gt;]] [--no-color] [&lt;diff-options&gt;]
         [--no-dual-color] [--creation-factor=&lt;factor&gt;]
         [--left-only | --right-only]
         ( &lt;range1&gt; &lt;range2&gt; | &lt;rev1&gt;&#8230;&lt;rev2&gt; | &lt;base&gt; &lt;rev1&gt; &lt;rev2&gt; )
         [[--] &lt;path&gt;&#8230;]</pre>
 <div class="attribution">
 </div></div>
 </div>
 </div>
 <div class="sect1">
 <h2 id="_description">DESCRIPTION</h2>
 <div class="sectionbody">
 <div class="paragraph"><p>This command shows the differences between two versions of a patch
 series, or more generally, two commit ranges (ignoring merge commits).</p></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>In the presence of <code>&lt;path&gt;</code> arguments, these commit ranges are limited
 accordingly.</p></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>To that end, it first finds pairs of commits from both commit ranges
 that correspond with each other. Two commits are said to correspond when
 the diff between their patches (i.e. the author information, the commit
 message and the commit diff) is reasonably small compared to the
 patches' size. See ``Algorithm`` below for details.</p></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>Finally, the list of matching commits is shown in the order of the
 second commit range, with unmatched commits being inserted just after
 all of their ancestors have been shown.</p></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>There are three ways to specify the commit ranges:</p></div>
 <div class="ulist"><ul>
 <li>
 <p>
 <code>&lt;range1&gt; &lt;range2&gt;</code>: Either commit range can be of the form
   <code>&lt;base&gt;..&lt;rev&gt;</code>, <code>&lt;rev&gt;^!</code> or <code>&lt;rev&gt;^-&lt;n&gt;</code>. See <code>SPECIFYING RANGES</code>
   in <a href="gitrevisions.html">gitrevisions(7)</a> for more details.
 </p>
 </li>
 <li>
 <p>
 <code>&lt;rev1&gt;...&lt;rev2&gt;</code>. This is equivalent to
   <code>&lt;rev2&gt;..&lt;rev1&gt; &lt;rev1&gt;..&lt;rev2&gt;</code>.
 </p>
 </li>
 <li>
 <p>
 <code>&lt;base&gt; &lt;rev1&gt; &lt;rev2&gt;</code>: This is equivalent to <code>&lt;base&gt;..&lt;rev1&gt;
   &lt;base&gt;..&lt;rev2&gt;</code>.
 </p>
 </li>
 </ul></div>
 </div>
 </div>
 <div class="sect1">
 <h2 id="_options">OPTIONS</h2>
 <div class="sectionbody">
 <div class="dlist"><dl>
 <dt class="hdlist1">
 --no-dual-color
 </dt>
 <dd>
 <p>
         When the commit diffs differ, &#8216;git range-diff` recreates the
         original diffs&#8217; coloring, and adds outer -/+ diff markers with
         the <strong>background</strong> being red/green to make it easier to see e.g.
         when there was a change in what exact lines were added.
 </p>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>Additionally, the commit diff lines that are only present in the first commit
 range are shown "dimmed" (this can be overridden using the <code>color.diff.&lt;slot&gt;</code>
 config setting where <code>&lt;slot&gt;</code> is one of <code>contextDimmed</code>, <code>oldDimmed</code> and
 <code>newDimmed</code>), and the commit diff lines that are only present in the second
 commit range are shown in bold (which can be overridden using the config
 settings <code>color.diff.&lt;slot&gt;</code> with <code>&lt;slot&gt;</code> being one of <code>contextBold</code>,
 <code>oldBold</code> or <code>newBold</code>).</p></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>This is known to <code>range-diff</code> as "dual coloring". Use <code>--no-dual-color</code>
 to revert to color all lines according to the outer diff markers
 (and completely ignore the inner diff when it comes to color).</p></div>
 </dd>
 <dt class="hdlist1">
 --creation-factor=&lt;percent&gt;
 </dt>
 <dd>
 <p>
         Set the creation/deletion cost fudge factor to <code>&lt;percent&gt;</code>.
         Defaults to 60. Try a larger value if <code>git range-diff</code> erroneously
         considers a large change a total rewrite (deletion of one commit
         and addition of another), and a smaller one in the reverse case.
         See the ``Algorithm`` section below for an explanation of why this is
         needed.
 </p>
 </dd>
 <dt class="hdlist1">
 --left-only
 </dt>
 <dd>
 <p>
         Suppress commits that are missing from the first specified range
         (or the "left range" when using the <code>&lt;rev1&gt;...&lt;rev2&gt;</code> format).
 </p>
 </dd>
 <dt class="hdlist1">
 --right-only
 </dt>
 <dd>
 <p>
         Suppress commits that are missing from the second specified range
         (or the "right range" when using the <code>&lt;rev1&gt;...&lt;rev2&gt;</code> format).
 </p>
 </dd>
 <dt class="hdlist1">
 --[no-]notes[=&lt;ref&gt;]
 </dt>
 <dd>
 <p>
         This flag is passed to the <code>git log</code> program
         (see <a href="git-log.html">git-log(1)</a>) that generates the patches.
 </p>
 </dd>
 <dt class="hdlist1">
 &lt;range1&gt; &lt;range2&gt;
 </dt>
 <dd>
 <p>
         Compare the commits specified by the two ranges, where
         <code>&lt;range1&gt;</code> is considered an older version of <code>&lt;range2&gt;</code>.
 </p>
 </dd>
 <dt class="hdlist1">
 &lt;rev1&gt;&#8230;&lt;rev2&gt;
 </dt>
 <dd>
 <p>
         Equivalent to passing <code>&lt;rev2&gt;..&lt;rev1&gt;</code> and <code>&lt;rev1&gt;..&lt;rev2&gt;</code>.
 </p>
 </dd>
 <dt class="hdlist1">
 &lt;base&gt; &lt;rev1&gt; &lt;rev2&gt;
 </dt>
 <dd>
 <p>
         Equivalent to passing <code>&lt;base&gt;..&lt;rev1&gt;</code> and <code>&lt;base&gt;..&lt;rev2&gt;</code>.
         Note that <code>&lt;base&gt;</code> does not need to be the exact branch point
         of the branches. Example: after rebasing a branch <code>my-topic</code>,
         <code>git range-diff my-topic@{u} my-topic@{1} my-topic</code> would
         show the differences introduced by the rebase.
 </p>
 </dd>
 </dl></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p><code>git range-diff</code> also accepts the regular diff options (see
 <a href="git-diff.html">git-diff(1)</a>), most notably the <code>--color=[&lt;when&gt;]</code> and
 <code>--no-color</code> options. These options are used when generating the "diff
 between patches", i.e. to compare the author, commit message and diff of
 corresponding old/new commits. There is currently no means to tweak most of the
 diff options passed to <code>git log</code> when generating those patches.</p></div>
 </div>
 </div>
 <div class="sect1">
 <h2 id="_output_stability">OUTPUT STABILITY</h2>
 <div class="sectionbody">
 <div class="paragraph"><p>The output of the <code>range-diff</code> command is subject to change. It is
 intended to be human-readable porcelain output, not something that can
 be used across versions of Git to get a textually stable <code>range-diff</code>
 (as opposed to something like the <code>--stable</code> option to
 <a href="git-patch-id.html">git-patch-id(1)</a>). There&#8217;s also no equivalent of
 <a href="git-apply.html">git-apply(1)</a> for <code>range-diff</code>, the output is not intended to
 be machine-readable.</p></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>This is particularly true when passing in diff options. Currently some
 options like <code>--stat</code> can, as an emergent effect, produce output
 that&#8217;s quite useless in the context of <code>range-diff</code>. Future versions
 of <code>range-diff</code> may learn to interpret such options in a manner
 specific to <code>range-diff</code> (e.g. for <code>--stat</code> producing human-readable
 output which summarizes how the diffstat changed).</p></div>
 </div>
 </div>
 <div class="sect1">
 <h2 id="_configuration">CONFIGURATION</h2>
 <div class="sectionbody">
 <div class="paragraph"><p>This command uses the <code>diff.color.*</code> and <code>pager.range-diff</code> settings
 (the latter is on by default).
 See <a href="git-config.html">git-config(1)</a>.</p></div>
 </div>
 </div>
 <div class="sect1">
 <h2 id="_examples">EXAMPLES</h2>
 <div class="sectionbody">
 <div class="paragraph"><p>When a rebase required merge conflicts to be resolved, compare the changes
 introduced by the rebase directly afterwards using:</p></div>
 <div class="listingblock">
 <div class="content">
 <pre><code>$ git range-diff @{u} @{1} @</code></pre>
 </div></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>A typical output of <code>git range-diff</code> would look like this:</p></div>
 <div class="listingblock">
 <div class="content">
 <pre><code>-:  ------- &gt; 1:  0ddba11 Prepare for the inevitable!
 1:  c0debee = 2:  cab005e Add a helpful message at the start
 2:  f00dbal ! 3:  decafe1 Describe a bug
     @@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
      Author: A U Thor &lt;author@example.com&gt;

     -TODO: Describe a bug
     +Describe a bug
     @@ -324,5 +324,6
       This is expected.

     -+What is unexpected is that it will also crash.
     ++Unexpectedly, it also crashes. This is a bug, and the jury is
     ++still out there how to fix it best. See ticket #314 for details.

       Contact
 3:  bedead &lt; -:  ------- TO-UNDO</code></pre>
 </div></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>In this example, there are 3 old and 3 new commits, where the developer
 removed the 3rd, added a new one before the first two, and modified the
 commit message of the 2nd commit as well as its diff.</p></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>When the output goes to a terminal, it is color-coded by default, just
 like regular <code>git diff</code>'s output. In addition, the first line (adding a
 commit) is green, the last line (deleting a commit) is red, the second
 line (with a perfect match) is yellow like the commit header of <code>git
 show</code>'s output, and the third line colors the old commit red, the new
 one green and the rest like <code>git show</code>'s commit header.</p></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>A naive color-coded diff of diffs is actually a bit hard to read,
 though, as it colors the entire lines red or green. The line that added
 "What is unexpected" in the old commit, for example, is completely red,
 even if the intent of the old commit was to add something.</p></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>To help with that, <code>range</code> uses the <code>--dual-color</code> mode by default. In
 this mode, the diff of diffs will retain the original diff colors, and
 prefix the lines with -/+ markers that have their <strong>background</strong> red or
 green, to make it more obvious that they describe how the diff itself
 changed.</p></div>
 </div>
 </div>
 <div class="sect1">
 <h2 id="_algorithm">Algorithm</h2>
 <div class="sectionbody">
 <div class="paragraph"><p>The general idea is this: we generate a cost matrix between the commits
 in both commit ranges, then solve the least-cost assignment.</p></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>The cost matrix is populated thusly: for each pair of commits, both
 diffs are generated and the "diff of diffs" is generated, with 3 context
 lines, then the number of lines in that diff is used as cost.</p></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>To avoid false positives (e.g. when a patch has been removed, and an
 unrelated patch has been added between two iterations of the same patch
 series), the cost matrix is extended to allow for that, by adding
 fixed-cost entries for wholesale deletes/adds.</p></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>Example: Let commits <code>1--2</code> be the first iteration of a patch series and
 <code>A--C</code> the second iteration. Let&#8217;s assume that <code>A</code> is a cherry-pick of
 <code>2,</code> and <code>C</code> is a cherry-pick of <code>1</code> but with a small modification (say,
 a fixed typo). Visualize the commits as a bipartite graph:</p></div>
 <div class="listingblock">
 <div class="content">
 <pre><code>    1            A

     2            B

                  C</code></pre>
 </div></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>We are looking for a "best" explanation of the new series in terms of
 the old one. We can represent an "explanation" as an edge in the graph:</p></div>
 <div class="listingblock">
 <div class="content">
 <pre><code>    1            A
                /
     2 --------'  B

                  C</code></pre>
 </div></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>This explanation comes for "free" because there was no change. Similarly
 <code>C</code> could be explained using <code>1</code>, but that comes at some cost c&gt;0
 because of the modification:</p></div>
 <div class="listingblock">
 <div class="content">
 <pre><code>    1 ----.      A
           |    /
     2 ----+---'  B
           |
           `----- C
           c&gt;0</code></pre>
 </div></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>In mathematical terms, what we are looking for is some sort of a minimum
 cost bipartite matching; &#8216;1` is matched to <code>C</code> at some cost, etc. The
 underlying graph is in fact a complete bipartite graph; the cost we
 associate with every edge is the size of the diff between the two
 commits&#8217; patches. To explain also new commits, we introduce dummy nodes
 on both sides:</p></div>
 <div class="listingblock">
 <div class="content">
 <pre><code>    1 ----.      A
           |    /
     2 ----+---'  B
           |
     o     `----- C
           c&gt;0
     o            o

     o            o</code></pre>
 </div></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>The cost of an edge <code>o--C</code> is the size of <code>C</code>'s diff, modified by a
 fudge factor that should be smaller than 100%. The cost of an edge
 <code>o--o</code> is free. The fudge factor is necessary because even if <code>1</code> and
 <code>C</code> have nothing in common, they may still share a few empty lines and
 such, possibly making the assignment <code>1--C</code>, <code>o--o</code> slightly cheaper
 than <code>1--o</code>, <code>o--C</code> even if <code>1</code> and <code>C</code> have nothing in common. With the
 fudge factor we require a much larger common part to consider patches as
 corresponding.</p></div>
 <div class="paragraph"><p>The overall time needed to compute this algorithm is the time needed to
 compute n+m commit diffs and then n*m diffs of patches, plus the time
 needed to compute the least-cost assignment between n and m diffs. Git
 uses an implementation of the Jonker-Volgenant algorithm to solve the
 assignment problem, which has cubic runtime complexity. The matching
 found in this case will look like this:</p></div>
 <div class="listingblock">
 <div class="content">
 <pre><code>    1 ----.      A
           |    /
     2 ----+---'  B
        .--+-----'
     o -'  `----- C
           c&gt;0
     o ---------- o

     o ---------- o</code></pre>
 </div></div>
 </div>
 </div>
 <div class="sect1">
 <h2 id="_see_also">SEE ALSO</h2>
 <div class="sectionbody">
 <div class="paragraph"><p><a href="git-log.html">git-log(1)</a></p></div>
 </div>
 </div>
 <div class="sect1">
 <h2 id="_git">GIT</h2>
 <div class="sectionbody">
 <div class="paragraph"><p>Part of the <a href="git.html">git(1)</a> suite</p></div>
 </div>
 </div>
 </div>
 <div id="footnotes"><hr /></div>
 <div id="footer">
 <div id="footer-text">
 Last updated
  2023-10-29 16:42:00 PDT
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