Git Diff for Two Commits of One File - Shell/Bash

When working with Git, it is essential to have a good understanding of how to use the git diff command. This command is used to show the changes between two commits, branches, or files.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to use git diff to compare two commits for a single file in a Git repository.

Syntax

The basic syntax of the git diff command is as follows:

git diff [options] <commit> <commit> -- <file>

Here is an explanation of the different components:

• git diff - the command used to show the differences between two commits.
• <commit> - a specific commit hash or reference to a commit to show the difference with relative to another commit.
• <file> - the name of the file to compare between the two commits.
• -- - a separator option used to separate the two commits from the file.

Example

To illustrate how the git diff command works, let's consider an example where we have a file called example.txt in our Git repository. We will compare the changes made to this file between two different commits.

Suppose the hash of the two commits we want to compare is abc123 and def456. To show the changes between these two commits for example.txt, we can run the following command:

git diff abc123 def456 -- example.txt

This will show the differences between example.txt in the two commits, highlighting any changes with + or - signs.

Conclusion

Using Git diff to compare two commits for one file in a Git repository is a task that every programmer should know how to do. By following the syntax explained above, you can easily compare changes made to specific files in different commits in your Git repository.