How to view file diff in git before commit

git git-diff
Sauce McBoss picture Sauce McBoss · Apr 6, 2012 · Viewed 450k times · Source

This often happens to me:

I'm working on a couple related changes at the same time over the course of a day or two, and when it's time to commit, I end up forgetting what changed in a specific file. (This is just a personal git repo, so I'm ok with having more than one update in a commit.)

Is there any way to preview the changes between my local file, which is about to be checked in, and the last commit for that file?

Something like:

git diff --changed /myfile.txt

And it would print out something like:

line 23
  (last commit): var = 2+2
  (current):     var = myfunction() + 2

line 149
  (last commit): return var
  (current):     return var / 7

This way, I could quickly see what I had done in that file since it was last checked in.

Answer

Amber picture Amber · Apr 6, 2012

If you want to see what you haven't git added yet:

git diff myfile.txt

or if you want to see already added changes

git diff --cached myfile.txt

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