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737 <h1>
738 git-range-diff(1) Manual Page
739 </h1>
740 <h2>NAME</h2>
741 <div class="sectionbody">
742 <p>git-range-diff -
743 Compare two commit ranges (e.g. two versions of a branch)
744 </p>
745 </div>
746 </div>
747 <div id="content">
748 <div class="sect1">
749 <h2 id="_synopsis">SYNOPSIS</h2>
750 <div class="sectionbody">
751 <div class="verseblock">
752 <pre class="content"><em>git range-diff</em> [--color=[&lt;when&gt;]] [--no-color] [&lt;diff-options&gt;]
753 [--no-dual-color] [--creation-factor=&lt;factor&gt;]
754 [--left-only | --right-only]
755 ( &lt;range1&gt; &lt;range2&gt; | &lt;rev1&gt;&#8230;&lt;rev2&gt; | &lt;base&gt; &lt;rev1&gt; &lt;rev2&gt; )
756 [[--] &lt;path&gt;&#8230;]</pre>
757 <div class="attribution">
758 </div></div>
759 </div>
760 </div>
761 <div class="sect1">
762 <h2 id="_description">DESCRIPTION</h2>
763 <div class="sectionbody">
764 <div class="paragraph"><p>This command shows the differences between two versions of a patch
765 series, or more generally, two commit ranges (ignoring merge commits).</p></div>
766 <div class="paragraph"><p>In the presence of <code>&lt;path&gt;</code> arguments, these commit ranges are limited
767 accordingly.</p></div>
768 <div class="paragraph"><p>To that end, it first finds pairs of commits from both commit ranges
769 that correspond with each other. Two commits are said to correspond when
770 the diff between their patches (i.e. the author information, the commit
771 message and the commit diff) is reasonably small compared to the
772 patches' size. See ``Algorithm`` below for details.</p></div>
773 <div class="paragraph"><p>Finally, the list of matching commits is shown in the order of the
774 second commit range, with unmatched commits being inserted just after
775 all of their ancestors have been shown.</p></div>
776 <div class="paragraph"><p>There are three ways to specify the commit ranges:</p></div>
777 <div class="ulist"><ul>
778 <li>
780 <code>&lt;range1&gt; &lt;range2&gt;</code>: Either commit range can be of the form
781 <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>
782 in <a href="gitrevisions.html">gitrevisions(7)</a> for more details.
783 </p>
784 </li>
785 <li>
787 <code>&lt;rev1&gt;...&lt;rev2&gt;</code>. This is equivalent to
788 <code>&lt;rev2&gt;..&lt;rev1&gt; &lt;rev1&gt;..&lt;rev2&gt;</code>.
789 </p>
790 </li>
791 <li>
793 <code>&lt;base&gt; &lt;rev1&gt; &lt;rev2&gt;</code>: This is equivalent to <code>&lt;base&gt;..&lt;rev1&gt;
794 &lt;base&gt;..&lt;rev2&gt;</code>.
795 </p>
796 </li>
797 </ul></div>
798 </div>
799 </div>
800 <div class="sect1">
801 <h2 id="_options">OPTIONS</h2>
802 <div class="sectionbody">
803 <div class="dlist"><dl>
804 <dt class="hdlist1">
805 --no-dual-color
806 </dt>
807 <dd>
809 When the commit diffs differ, &#8216;git range-diff` recreates the
810 original diffs&#8217; coloring, and adds outer -/+ diff markers with
811 the <strong>background</strong> being red/green to make it easier to see e.g.
812 when there was a change in what exact lines were added.
813 </p>
814 <div class="paragraph"><p>Additionally, the commit diff lines that are only present in the first commit
815 range are shown "dimmed" (this can be overridden using the <code>color.diff.&lt;slot&gt;</code>
816 config setting where <code>&lt;slot&gt;</code> is one of <code>contextDimmed</code>, <code>oldDimmed</code> and
817 <code>newDimmed</code>), and the commit diff lines that are only present in the second
818 commit range are shown in bold (which can be overridden using the config
819 settings <code>color.diff.&lt;slot&gt;</code> with <code>&lt;slot&gt;</code> being one of <code>contextBold</code>,
820 <code>oldBold</code> or <code>newBold</code>).</p></div>
821 <div class="paragraph"><p>This is known to <code>range-diff</code> as "dual coloring". Use <code>--no-dual-color</code>
822 to revert to color all lines according to the outer diff markers
823 (and completely ignore the inner diff when it comes to color).</p></div>
824 </dd>
825 <dt class="hdlist1">
826 --creation-factor=&lt;percent&gt;
827 </dt>
828 <dd>
830 Set the creation/deletion cost fudge factor to <code>&lt;percent&gt;</code>.
831 Defaults to 60. Try a larger value if <code>git range-diff</code> erroneously
832 considers a large change a total rewrite (deletion of one commit
833 and addition of another), and a smaller one in the reverse case.
834 See the ``Algorithm`` section below for an explanation of why this is
835 needed.
836 </p>
837 </dd>
838 <dt class="hdlist1">
839 --left-only
840 </dt>
841 <dd>
843 Suppress commits that are missing from the first specified range
844 (or the "left range" when using the <code>&lt;rev1&gt;...&lt;rev2&gt;</code> format).
845 </p>
846 </dd>
847 <dt class="hdlist1">
848 --right-only
849 </dt>
850 <dd>
852 Suppress commits that are missing from the second specified range
853 (or the "right range" when using the <code>&lt;rev1&gt;...&lt;rev2&gt;</code> format).
854 </p>
855 </dd>
856 <dt class="hdlist1">
857 --[no-]notes[=&lt;ref&gt;]
858 </dt>
859 <dd>
861 This flag is passed to the <code>git log</code> program
862 (see <a href="git-log.html">git-log(1)</a>) that generates the patches.
863 </p>
864 </dd>
865 <dt class="hdlist1">
866 &lt;range1&gt; &lt;range2&gt;
867 </dt>
868 <dd>
870 Compare the commits specified by the two ranges, where
871 <code>&lt;range1&gt;</code> is considered an older version of <code>&lt;range2&gt;</code>.
872 </p>
873 </dd>
874 <dt class="hdlist1">
875 &lt;rev1&gt;&#8230;&lt;rev2&gt;
876 </dt>
877 <dd>
879 Equivalent to passing <code>&lt;rev2&gt;..&lt;rev1&gt;</code> and <code>&lt;rev1&gt;..&lt;rev2&gt;</code>.
880 </p>
881 </dd>
882 <dt class="hdlist1">
883 &lt;base&gt; &lt;rev1&gt; &lt;rev2&gt;
884 </dt>
885 <dd>
887 Equivalent to passing <code>&lt;base&gt;..&lt;rev1&gt;</code> and <code>&lt;base&gt;..&lt;rev2&gt;</code>.
888 Note that <code>&lt;base&gt;</code> does not need to be the exact branch point
889 of the branches. Example: after rebasing a branch <code>my-topic</code>,
890 <code>git range-diff my-topic@{u} my-topic@{1} my-topic</code> would
891 show the differences introduced by the rebase.
892 </p>
893 </dd>
894 </dl></div>
895 <div class="paragraph"><p><code>git range-diff</code> also accepts the regular diff options (see
896 <a href="git-diff.html">git-diff(1)</a>), most notably the <code>--color=[&lt;when&gt;]</code> and
897 <code>--no-color</code> options. These options are used when generating the "diff
898 between patches", i.e. to compare the author, commit message and diff of
899 corresponding old/new commits. There is currently no means to tweak most of the
900 diff options passed to <code>git log</code> when generating those patches.</p></div>
901 </div>
902 </div>
903 <div class="sect1">
904 <h2 id="_output_stability">OUTPUT STABILITY</h2>
905 <div class="sectionbody">
906 <div class="paragraph"><p>The output of the <code>range-diff</code> command is subject to change. It is
907 intended to be human-readable porcelain output, not something that can
908 be used across versions of Git to get a textually stable <code>range-diff</code>
909 (as opposed to something like the <code>--stable</code> option to
910 <a href="git-patch-id.html">git-patch-id(1)</a>). There&#8217;s also no equivalent of
911 <a href="git-apply.html">git-apply(1)</a> for <code>range-diff</code>, the output is not intended to
912 be machine-readable.</p></div>
913 <div class="paragraph"><p>This is particularly true when passing in diff options. Currently some
914 options like <code>--stat</code> can, as an emergent effect, produce output
915 that&#8217;s quite useless in the context of <code>range-diff</code>. Future versions
916 of <code>range-diff</code> may learn to interpret such options in a manner
917 specific to <code>range-diff</code> (e.g. for <code>--stat</code> producing human-readable
918 output which summarizes how the diffstat changed).</p></div>
919 </div>
920 </div>
921 <div class="sect1">
922 <h2 id="_configuration">CONFIGURATION</h2>
923 <div class="sectionbody">
924 <div class="paragraph"><p>This command uses the <code>diff.color.*</code> and <code>pager.range-diff</code> settings
925 (the latter is on by default).
926 See <a href="git-config.html">git-config(1)</a>.</p></div>
927 </div>
928 </div>
929 <div class="sect1">
930 <h2 id="_examples">EXAMPLES</h2>
931 <div class="sectionbody">
932 <div class="paragraph"><p>When a rebase required merge conflicts to be resolved, compare the changes
933 introduced by the rebase directly afterwards using:</p></div>
934 <div class="listingblock">
935 <div class="content">
936 <pre><code>$ git range-diff @{u} @{1} @</code></pre>
937 </div></div>
938 <div class="paragraph"><p>A typical output of <code>git range-diff</code> would look like this:</p></div>
939 <div class="listingblock">
940 <div class="content">
941 <pre><code>-: ------- &gt; 1: 0ddba11 Prepare for the inevitable!
942 1: c0debee = 2: cab005e Add a helpful message at the start
943 2: f00dbal ! 3: decafe1 Describe a bug
944 @@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
945 Author: A U Thor &lt;author@example.com&gt;
947 -TODO: Describe a bug
948 +Describe a bug
949 @@ -324,5 +324,6
950 This is expected.
952 -+What is unexpected is that it will also crash.
953 ++Unexpectedly, it also crashes. This is a bug, and the jury is
954 ++still out there how to fix it best. See ticket #314 for details.
956 Contact
957 3: bedead &lt; -: ------- TO-UNDO</code></pre>
958 </div></div>
959 <div class="paragraph"><p>In this example, there are 3 old and 3 new commits, where the developer
960 removed the 3rd, added a new one before the first two, and modified the
961 commit message of the 2nd commit as well as its diff.</p></div>
962 <div class="paragraph"><p>When the output goes to a terminal, it is color-coded by default, just
963 like regular <code>git diff</code>'s output. In addition, the first line (adding a
964 commit) is green, the last line (deleting a commit) is red, the second
965 line (with a perfect match) is yellow like the commit header of <code>git
966 show</code>'s output, and the third line colors the old commit red, the new
967 one green and the rest like <code>git show</code>'s commit header.</p></div>
968 <div class="paragraph"><p>A naive color-coded diff of diffs is actually a bit hard to read,
969 though, as it colors the entire lines red or green. The line that added
970 "What is unexpected" in the old commit, for example, is completely red,
971 even if the intent of the old commit was to add something.</p></div>
972 <div class="paragraph"><p>To help with that, <code>range</code> uses the <code>--dual-color</code> mode by default. In
973 this mode, the diff of diffs will retain the original diff colors, and
974 prefix the lines with -/+ markers that have their <strong>background</strong> red or
975 green, to make it more obvious that they describe how the diff itself
976 changed.</p></div>
977 </div>
978 </div>
979 <div class="sect1">
980 <h2 id="_algorithm">Algorithm</h2>
981 <div class="sectionbody">
982 <div class="paragraph"><p>The general idea is this: we generate a cost matrix between the commits
983 in both commit ranges, then solve the least-cost assignment.</p></div>
984 <div class="paragraph"><p>The cost matrix is populated thusly: for each pair of commits, both
985 diffs are generated and the "diff of diffs" is generated, with 3 context
986 lines, then the number of lines in that diff is used as cost.</p></div>
987 <div class="paragraph"><p>To avoid false positives (e.g. when a patch has been removed, and an
988 unrelated patch has been added between two iterations of the same patch
989 series), the cost matrix is extended to allow for that, by adding
990 fixed-cost entries for wholesale deletes/adds.</p></div>
991 <div class="paragraph"><p>Example: Let commits <code>1--2</code> be the first iteration of a patch series and
992 <code>A--C</code> the second iteration. Let&#8217;s assume that <code>A</code> is a cherry-pick of
993 <code>2,</code> and <code>C</code> is a cherry-pick of <code>1</code> but with a small modification (say,
994 a fixed typo). Visualize the commits as a bipartite graph:</p></div>
995 <div class="listingblock">
996 <div class="content">
997 <pre><code> 1 A
1001 C</code></pre>
1002 </div></div>
1003 <div class="paragraph"><p>We are looking for a "best" explanation of the new series in terms of
1004 the old one. We can represent an "explanation" as an edge in the graph:</p></div>
1005 <div class="listingblock">
1006 <div class="content">
1007 <pre><code> 1 A
1009 2 --------' B
1011 C</code></pre>
1012 </div></div>
1013 <div class="paragraph"><p>This explanation comes for "free" because there was no change. Similarly
1014 <code>C</code> could be explained using <code>1</code>, but that comes at some cost c&gt;0
1015 because of the modification:</p></div>
1016 <div class="listingblock">
1017 <div class="content">
1018 <pre><code> 1 ----. A
1020 2 ----+---' B
1022 `----- C
1023 c&gt;0</code></pre>
1024 </div></div>
1025 <div class="paragraph"><p>In mathematical terms, what we are looking for is some sort of a minimum
1026 cost bipartite matching; &#8216;1` is matched to <code>C</code> at some cost, etc. The
1027 underlying graph is in fact a complete bipartite graph; the cost we
1028 associate with every edge is the size of the diff between the two
1029 commits&#8217; patches. To explain also new commits, we introduce dummy nodes
1030 on both sides:</p></div>
1031 <div class="listingblock">
1032 <div class="content">
1033 <pre><code> 1 ----. A
1035 2 ----+---' B
1037 o `----- C
1038 c&gt;0
1041 o o</code></pre>
1042 </div></div>
1043 <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
1044 fudge factor that should be smaller than 100%. The cost of an edge
1045 <code>o--o</code> is free. The fudge factor is necessary because even if <code>1</code> and
1046 <code>C</code> have nothing in common, they may still share a few empty lines and
1047 such, possibly making the assignment <code>1--C</code>, <code>o--o</code> slightly cheaper
1048 than <code>1--o</code>, <code>o--C</code> even if <code>1</code> and <code>C</code> have nothing in common. With the
1049 fudge factor we require a much larger common part to consider patches as
1050 corresponding.</p></div>
1051 <div class="paragraph"><p>The overall time needed to compute this algorithm is the time needed to
1052 compute n+m commit diffs and then n*m diffs of patches, plus the time
1053 needed to compute the least-cost assignment between n and m diffs. Git
1054 uses an implementation of the Jonker-Volgenant algorithm to solve the
1055 assignment problem, which has cubic runtime complexity. The matching
1056 found in this case will look like this:</p></div>
1057 <div class="listingblock">
1058 <div class="content">
1059 <pre><code> 1 ----. A
1061 2 ----+---' B
1062 .--+-----'
1063 o -' `----- C
1064 c&gt;0
1065 o ---------- o
1067 o ---------- o</code></pre>
1068 </div></div>
1069 </div>
1070 </div>
1071 <div class="sect1">
1072 <h2 id="_see_also">SEE ALSO</h2>
1073 <div class="sectionbody">
1074 <div class="paragraph"><p><a href="git-log.html">git-log(1)</a></p></div>
1075 </div>
1076 </div>
1077 <div class="sect1">
1078 <h2 id="_git">GIT</h2>
1079 <div class="sectionbody">
1080 <div class="paragraph"><p>Part of the <a href="git.html">git(1)</a> suite</p></div>
1081 </div>
1082 </div>
1083 </div>
1084 <div id="footnotes"><hr /></div>
1085 <div id="footer">
1086 <div id="footer-text">
1087 Last updated
1088 2023-10-29 16:42:00 PDT
1089 </div>
1090 </div>
1091 </body>
1092 </html>