Git: Compare All Local Commits to Remote Repo Version

Question

I'm somewhat new to Git and what I'm trying to do seems like it should be possible. Basically I've been working off of clone of a repo and have made quite a few local commits. Is there a way to see the diff of the 'sum' of all my changes and the original repo version? I would assume this would be possible because Git will essentially do this when I do a push.

Here is an example of what I'm trying to do: in gitk I will see something like this:
* - [mybranch] Added '42' to end of answers.txt (local commit)
* - Added 'Hello World' to end of my.txt (local commit)
* - Added 'C#/.NET' to beginning of my.txt (local commit)
* - <[RemoteRepo]> (original repo I cloned from)

How is it I can view the difference of the sum of all my changes to my.txt and answers.txt when compared to the original version I checked out from RemoteRepo?

Answer 1

There are three ways ( two others from other answers given here )

1) git diff origin/master master 2) git diff origin/master..master 3) git diff origin/master...master 

First one and second one are same and show changes between the tips of the master and remote master.

Third one shows changes that occurred on the master since branch last push and I think this is the most appropriate one you are looking for

Answer 2

The most ready answer is

 git show-branch 

What you can do for more control is is use git log annex git rev-list:

 git log --left-right --graph --cherry-pick \       --oneline branchname...remote/branchname 

This is my preferred method and will result in something like

> | fff6bda remote fix < | c8903ee local fix < |   724373c Merge branch 'bla' into bla |\ \   | < | 2faf547 details | < | abbdc47 .... |/ /   < | befc181 some tagged commit 

Include --decorate and you'll get something close to gitk, git-gui and gitweb:

> | fff6bda remote fix < | c8903ee local fix < |   724373c (tag_4) Merge branch 'bla' into bla |\ \   | < | 2faf547 details | < | abbdc47 .... |/ /   < | befc181 (tag_3) some tagged commit 

PRO TIP 1: Use 'git config alias.lr log --long-option1 --long-option2' for convenient use

PRO TIP 2: Use 'git config color.ui auto' for immediate eye-relief

If you wanted all local heads (on all local branches) versus all remote commits (on ditto branches):

git log --decorate --pretty=oneline --all --not --glob=refs/remotes --no-walk 

Leave off the no-walk to get all individual revisions. In this case I prefer to use the switches shown earlier (--graph --left-right)

Merges

If you want to see merges clearly, include --boundary

Various advanced queries:

Filtering the results

Git log and rev-list support a whole slew of cunning filtering ability, see the man page

--after '2001-01-01' --until 'last week' --author 'martin' -E -i  --grep='fixes #[0123456789]+' -S 'new_debug_function' 

and many, many others. This should give you plenty of leverage to get exactly at the info you want with almost zero effort

What's stashed locally?

What resides in stashes, but not on remotes (note there is no way to refer to stashes on remote braches because stashes reside in reflogs, and the reflogs (even for remote branches) always reflect local history[1]):

git log $(git rev-list -g stash) --not --glob=refs/remotes  

All (other) unreachable commits...

Notes

• on my workflow these constitue rebased/amended commits and dropped stashes only
• also generating these will take some time depending on the size of your history graph

• this will include any dropped stashes, but not the current stashes

  git log $(git fsck --unreachable --full --lost-found | grep ' commit ' | cut -d' ' -f3) \ --no-walk --not --glob=refs/remotes --oneline --decorate

Scripting

For scripting purposes, replace the use of git log with git rev-list and you'll get just the hashes (and some more script-prrof robustness)

[1] See also my prior answer(s) on how to transfer stashes between repos:

• Is it possible to push a git stash to a remote repository?
• Can I fetch a stash from a remote repo into a local branch?