Git Diff Explained

diff provides two output formats that show context around the differing lines: context format and unified format.

2.2.2 Unified Format ¶. The unified output format is a variation on the context format that is more compact because it omits redundant context lines.

The format starts with the same two-line header as the context format, except that the original file is preceded by --- and the new file is preceded by + ... History · Algorithm · Use · Implementations and related...

Raw output format · A : addition of a file · C : copy of a file into a new one · D : deletion of a file · M : modification of the contents or mode of a file · R : ...

The diff utility shall compare the contents of file1 and file2 and write to standard output a list of changes necessary to convert file1 into file2.

I am currently playing around with parsing diff files, and have yet to come across a solid documentation on diff files. I am especially interested in ...

In a unified patch, each file comparison is introduced by a pair of lines starting with --- (the “from” file) and +++ (the “to” file).

A difference file records all the ways two text files are different. They're sometimes called patch files and might use the PATCH file extension.

GNU diff provides two output formats that show context around the differing lines: context format and unified format. It can optionally show in which function ...