Difference between file in local repository and origin
GitGit DiffGit Problem Overview
I want to find the differences between a file I have in my local repository vs. what is in the origin master
.
I know that there is git diff
. However, I just want to isolate it down to this one particular file.
For simplicity, let’s say the file is named file1.txt
and it has a local file path = [local_path]
and in the origin it has filepath = [remote-path]
.
What would be the Git command I need to type?
For those that are using Eclipse, I just found out that you can just right click → Compare With → Branch, Tag or Reference → select the appropriate version and there you go.
Git Solutions
Solution 1 - Git
If [remote-path]
and [local-path]
are the same, you can do
$ git fetch origin master
$ git diff origin/master -- [local-path]
Note 1: The second command above will compare against the locally stored remote tracking branch. The fetch command is required to update the remote tracking branch to be in sync with the contents of the remote server. Alternatively, you can just do
$ git diff master:<path-or-file-name>
Note 2: master
can be replaced in the above examples with any branch name
Solution 2 - Git
To view the differences going from the remote file to the local file:
git diff remotename/branchname:remote/path/file1.txt local/path/file1.txt
To view the differences in the other direction:
git diff HEAD:local/path/file1.txt remotename/branchname:remote/path/file1.txt
Basically you can diff any two files anywhere using this notation:
git diff ref1:path/to/file1 ref2:path/to/file2
As usual, ref1
and ref2
could be branch names, remotename/branchname, commit SHAs, etc.
Solution 3 - Git
To compare the local repository with the remote one, simply use the below syntax:
git diff @{upstream}
Solution 4 - Git
For that I wrote a Bash script:
#set -x
branchname=`git branch | grep -F '*' | awk '{print $2}'`
echo $branchname
git fetch origin ${branchname}
for file in `git status | awk '{if ($1 == "modified:") print $2;}'`
do
echo "PLEASE CHECK OUT GIT DIFF FOR "$file
git difftool FETCH_HEAD $file ;
done
In the above script, I fetch the remote main branch (not necessarily its master branch - any branch) to FETCH_HEAD
, make a list of my modified file only, and compare modified files to git difftool
.
There are many difftool
supported by Git, I configured Meld Diff Viewer for good GUI comparison.
From the above script, I have prior knowledge what changes done by other teams in the same file before I follow the Git stages untracked → staged → commit, which help me to avoid unnecessary resolve merge conflict with a remote team or make a new local branch and compare and merge on the main branch.
Solution 5 - Git
I tried a couple of solutions, but I think an easy way is like this (you are in the local folder):
#!/bin/bash
git fetch
var_local=`cat .git/refs/heads/master`
var_remote=`git log origin/master -1 | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f2`
if [ "$var_remote" = "$var_local" ]; then
echo "Strings are equal." #1
else
echo "Strings are not equal." # 0 if you want
fi
After running this script, you will be finished comparing the local Git and remote Git using the last commit number.
Solution 6 - Git
To check with the current branch:
git diff -- projects/components/some.component.ts ... origin
git diff -- projects/components/some.component.html ... origin
To check with some other branch, say staging:
git diff -- projects/components/some.component.ts ... origin/staging
git diff -- projects/components/some.component.html ... origin/staging
Solution 7 - Git
A full answer to the original question that was talking about a possible different path on local and remote is below:
git fetch origin
git diff master -- [local-path] origin/master -- [remote-path]
Assuming the local path is docs/file1.txt and remote path is docs2/file1.txt, use git diff master -- docs/file1.txt origin/master -- docs2/file1.txt
This is adapted from the GitHub help page here and the previous Code-Apprentice answer.