# git diff --git-ignore 2 messages from 2021-09-19 to 2021-09-20. Participants: Aaron Gray, Junio C Hamano. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/56541 ## Aaron Gray, 2021-09-19 23:50 Subject: git diff --git-ignore Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CANkmNDf5KVn7Afj9xtvMGC0Ua7G6O3EOjBRtAfBOKOnaYgqVXA%40mail.gmail.com ``` Hi, Is it possible to add a --git-ignore flag to git diff so I only see the diffs for what I really want to be looking at, and not what I don't ;) Regards, Aaron -- Aaron Gray Independent Open Source Software Engineer, Computer Language Researcher, Information Theorist, and amateur computer scientist. ``` ## Junio C Hamano, 2021-09-20 02:23 Subject: Re: git diff --git-ignore Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/xmqq4kagdlxx.fsf%40gitster.g In-Reply-To: ``` Aaron Gray writes: > Is it possible to add a --git-ignore flag to git diff so I only see > the diffs for what I really want to be looking at, and not what I > don't ;) How does your --git-ignore option exactly guess differences for which paths to show and which paths to exclude? How do you tell the "git diff --git-ignore" command which paths are what you really want to be looking at? If it is by magic, good luck writing such a feature ;-) If it is like "I only am interested in changes in src/ directory and the top-level Makefile", then perhaps using pathspec is what you want. E.g. $ git diff -- src/ Makefile $ git diff --cached -- src/ Makefile $ git diff master topic -- src/ Makefile $ git diff master...topic -- src/ Makefile Modern Git even allows you to include negative elements to the pathspec, e.g. $ git diff src/ ':(exclude)*.h' would tell us "show only changes in the src/ directory, but do not bother with changes to the dot-h files". HTH ```