How do I call git diff on the same file between 2 different local branches?

Question

Is there a way to check the difference between the working directory in my current branch against the working directory of another branch in a specific file? For example, if I'm working in branch A on file 1, I want to compare the difference with file 1 on branch B.

Solution 1

Use the git diff branch branch filename syntax:

git diff branchA branchB -- file.cs

put the two names of your branches and optionally use the -- filename option to specify one file! Good luck, let me know if you have issues.

Solution 2

The following will help if you want to compare different files in two branches

git diff develop:foo.txt master:bar.txt

Solution 3

Say you're on one branch, called legacy, and want to compare the file build.gradle to the same version on the master branch:

git diff master build.gradle

Comments

[PRS]

I don't think you need the -- portion, and you can diff more than one file or directory this way. If you don't pass anything, it shows the entire branch diff. git diff branchA branchB - diff between branches on entire repo git diff branchA branchB file.cs - diff on that 1 file git diff branchA branchB some/path/in/rep some/other/path - diffs two directories

[Robert Calhoun]

This was helpful: I needed to compare files that had moved around in the linux source. git diff linux-v4.1.10:sound/soc/davinci/davinci-mcasp.c linux-5.4.y:sound/soc/ti/davinci-mcasp.c did the trick.