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When the head is at a particular commit, I want to get a diff file so that I can reduce the head to one more level down and then try the testing functionality with and without applying the diff file. So is there a way to generate a diff file of a specific commit.
Even though there is a way to change the head before and after commit, this method comes in more handy.
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The git diff command returns a list of all the changes in all the files between our last commit and our current repository. If you want to retrieve the changes made to a specific file in a repository, you can specify that file as a third parameter.
Find what file changed in a commit To find out which files changed in a given commit, use the git log --raw command. It's the fastest and simplest way to get insight into which files a commit affects.
The git diff command is used to perform the diff function on Git data sources. For example, commits, branches, files, and so on. It can also be used to compare two files of different branches.
See the changes of a specific commit:
git diff <commit-sha> -p
Or,
git show --decorate <commit-sha> # See 'Author', 'Date' and 'diff'
See the diff of two commits:
git diff <commit1> <commit2>
See the file changes for a specific commit:
git show <commit>:<file>
See all the changes for a time duration (say, 1 day):
git whatchanged --since="1 day ago" -p
git whatchanged --since="1 day ago" -p <file> # See changes for a specific file only
If I understand you correctly, you want to get a diff for a file with one level below HEAD.
To check the file difference from the current HEAD to one level before:
git diff HEAD^1 filename
The number 1 is for the level you want to compare.
You can also get a diff using the SHA-1 hash also. To see all commits with their SHA-1 use:
git log --oneline
And then you can use the SHA-1 hash to get a diff to compare the current HEAD with a specific commit. Use:
git diff commitSHA filename
If you want to get all differences between two commits, you can use:
git diff commitSHA1..commitSHA2 filename
From gitrevisions(7):
The r1^! notation includes commit r1 but excludes all of its parents. By itself, this notation denotes the single commit r1.
This works to show the diff for a single commit. E.g., you can do:
git log --oneline | grep thingamabob
This will give you the short SHA-1 hash, so then you can see the diff for that commit:
git diff 'b7f57543^!'
To generate a diff file you would forward the output to a file. Say commit1 is the commit you want the diff for:
git diff <commit-before-commit1> <commit1> > commit1.diff
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