git-diff new files (without using index)

One thing I often want to do is generate a complete diff of all changes, including new/removed files.

If I add things to the index, I can use "git-diff --cached" to do it; however I'd actually like to be able to do this _without_ updating the index; in other words, any un-added new file as a change. As it is, the "non-indexed" state seems kind of a second-class citizen, as you can never have new files there (or rather, git will never really see them).

Is there anyway to do this currently? If not, maybe something like a "git-diff -N" (mirroring diff's -N/--new-file option) option could be added to do this?

Thanks,

-Miles

Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> wrote:

 
Use a temporary index:

  (export GIT_INDEX_FILE=.git/tempindex;
   cp .git/index $GIT_INDEX_FILE;
   git add new-file;
   git add other-new-file;
   git diff --cached)

We pull this trick sometimes in internal tools, when we want to produce some result but aren't sure we want to keep the resulting index, or really know we don't want to keep the resulting index.

Another option is to just add everything, then reset the index:

  git add new-file
  git add other-new-file
  git diff --cached
  git reset

Granted if you had other files staged they just became unstaged and will need to be restaged... the temporary index trick above avoids that.

"Shawn O. Pearce" <spearce@spearce.org> writes:

...

...

Thanks for the tip (I guess I can roll my own "git-diff-uncached" script)!

The above sort of quirkiness does seem kind of a wart though; in my (admittedly limited, using git) experience this sort of thing really reduces the utility of the index, and I often end up feeling like it's just getting in the way as a result. Does adding something like a "git-diff -N" option seem a _bad_ idea?

Thanks,

-Miles

Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> wrote:

Indeed, Git is quite scriptable.  ;-)
 

I'm not interested in such an option. Typically if I want a diff on a new untracked file I actually want that file in my next commit anyway. So I'm usually staging it into the index along with everything else that I have modified. In which case this quirkiness isn't really a quirk at all. Its just not an issue to me.

If you want to try adding it, go right ahead. The source for git is stored in git and available from many places. :-)

"Shawn O. Pearce" <spearce@spearce.org> writes:

I suspect that it's probably half superstition and half disease to wish for "diff /dev/null new-file". Even CVS got this one right by saying "is a new file, no diff available". The contents of that new file is available in "less new-file" near you anyway and it is quite pointless while you are working toward next commit. It just is not interesting, until you tell git you _care_ about that file. And the way you tell git about it is with "git add".

Learn to love the index, run "git-add" and view "git-diff HEAD".

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

Er, please, a bit of consideration.  It's not superstition, it's not a disease.

I _want to use the index_: I want to stage changes, and then make more changes, and just generally be able to treat these three states (HEAD, indexed, non-indexed) as points which can be used as inputs to git-diff -- and I want _applyable patch files_ as the output from git-diff, not pretty diffs for browsing.

Thanks,

-Miles