How Do I Show the Changes Which Have Been Staged?
I Staged a Few Changes to Be Committed; How Can I See the Diff of All Files Which Are Staged for the Next Commit? I'm Aware of Git Status, but I'd Like to See...
I staged a few changes to be committed; how can I see the diff of all files which are staged for the next commit? I'm aware of git status, but I'd like to see the actual diffs - not just the names of files which are staged.
I saw that the git-diff(1) man page says
git diff [--options] [--] […]
This form is to view the changes you made relative to the index (staging area for the next commit). In other words, the differences are what you could tell git to further add to the index but you still haven't. You can stage these changes by using git-add(1).
Unfortunately, I can't quite make sense of this. There must be some handy one-liner which I could create an alias for, right?
16 Answers
It should just be:
git diff --cached
--cached means show the changes in the cache/index (i.e. staged changes) against the current HEAD. --staged is a synonym for --cached.
--staged and --cached does not point to HEAD, just difference with respect to HEAD. If you cherry pick what to commit using git add --patch (or git add -p), --staged will return what is staged.
A simple graphic makes this clearer:
git diff
Shows the changes between the working directory and the index. This shows what has been changed, but is not staged for a commit.
git diff --cached
Shows the changes between the index and the HEAD (which is the last commit on this branch). This shows what has been added to the index and staged for a commit.
git diff HEAD
Shows all the changes between the working directory and HEAD (which includes changes in the index). This shows all the changes since the last commit, whether or not they have been staged for commit or not.
Also:
There is a bit more detail on 365Git.
Note that git status -v also shows the staged changes!
(meaning you need to have staged -- git add -- some changes. No staged changes, no diff with git status -v.
It does that since Git 1.2.0, February 2006)
In its long form (default), git status has an undocumented "verbose" option which actually display the diff between HEAD and index.
And it is about to become even more complete: see "Show both staged & working tree in git diff?" (git 2.3.4+, Q2 2015):
git status -v -v
If you'd be interested in a visual side-by-side view, the diffuse visual diff tool can do that. It will even show three panes if some but not all changes are staged. In the case of conflicts, there will even be four panes.
Invoke it with
diffuse -m
in your Git working copy.
If you ask me, the best visual differ I've seen for a decade. Also, it is not specific to Git: It interoperates with a plethora of other VCS, including SVN, Mercurial, Bazaar, ...
For Staging Area vs Repository(last commit) comparison use
$ git diff --staged
The command compares your staged($ git add fileName) changes to your last commit. If you want to see what you’ve staged that will go into your next commit, you can use git diff --staged. This command compares your staged changes to your last commit.
For Working vs Staging comparison use
$ git diff
The command compares what is in your working directory with what is in your staging area. It’s important to note that git diff by itself doesn’t show all changes made since your last commit — only changes that are still unstaged. If you’ve staged all of your changes($ git add fileName), git diff will give you no output.
Also, if you stage a file($ git add fileName) and then edit it, you can use git diff to see the changes in the file that are staged and the changes that are unstaged.
You can use this command.
git diff --cached --name-only
The --cached option of git diff means to get staged files, and the --name-only option means to get only names of the files.
USING A VISUAL DIFF TOOL
Must Read
The Default Answer (at the command line)
The top answers here correctly show how to view the cached/staged changes in the Index:
$ git diff --cached
or $ git diff --staged which is an alias.
Maya is a hardware enthusiast who tests and reviews smart home devices, smartphones, wearables, and audio gear. She focuses on practical consumer value and build quality.
