From: Michael J Gruber Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2016 09:11:14 GMT Subject: [PATCH] Documentation/git-diff: document git diff with 3+ commits Message-ID: <07712c2c94670ca4d91ef78cd7d3602a8d36b0c1.1477472970.git.git@drmicha.warpmail.net> In-Reply-To: That one is difficult to discover but super useful, so document it: Specifying 3 or more commits makes git diff switch to combined diff. Signed-off-by: Michael J Gruber --- Notes: Note that we have the following now: 'git diff A B' displays 'B minus A' 'git diff A B C' displays 'A minus B' and 'A minus C' While I know why, that (the implicit '-R' seems unfortunate). (NB: One has to use '-c' if A is an actual merge commiti, it seems.) If M is a merge base for A and B, we have: 'git diff A..B' equivalent to 'git diff A B' in contrast to 'git log A..B' listing commits between M and B only (without the commits between M and A unless they are "in" B). I would expect 'git diff M B' here. 'git diff A...B' is equivalent to 'git diff M B' in contrast to 'git log A...B' listing commits between M and A (marked left) as well as commits between M and B (marked right). I would expect 'git diff -c -R M A B' here. Somehow the positive and negative ends of these ranges don't correspond well with thinking about diffs as differences between these ends. [I'm not exact with my use of "between" regarding boundary commits.] Documentation/git-diff.txt | 10 +++++++++- 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/Documentation/git-diff.txt b/Documentation/git-diff.txt index bbab35fcaf..2047318a27 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-diff.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-diff.txt @@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ SYNOPSIS 'git diff' [options] [] [--] [...] 'git diff' [options] --cached [] [--] [...] 'git diff' [options] [--] [...] +'git diff' [options] [...] 'git diff' [options] 'git diff' [options] [--no-index] [--] @@ -75,9 +76,16 @@ two blob objects, or changes between two files on disk. "git diff $(git-merge-base A B) B". You can omit any one of , which has the same effect as using HEAD instead. +'git diff' [options] [...]:: + + This is to view a combined diff between the first + and the remaining ones, just like viewing a combined diff + for a merge commit (see below) where the first + is the merge commit and the remaining ones are the parents. + Just in case if you are doing something exotic, it should be noted that all of the in the above description, except -in the last two forms that use ".." notations, can be any +in the two forms that use ".." notations, can be any . For a more complete list of ways to spell , see -- 2.10.1.723.g0f00470