How to compare two different commits on the same branch in github?

Question

Comparing histories on the same branch is very confusing for me on GitHub. I struggle with this regularly:

If I use compare/master in the URL after the GitHub repo name, I can compare against other branches in the repo based on the options in the drop-down menus.

https://help.github.com/en/articles/comparing-commits-across-time

However, I usually want to compare several commits on master.

How is this easily done? Could I get a more clear example?

Answer 1

You can use the following URL structure to compare commits in the same branch:

github.com/<username>/<repo_name>/compare/<commit1>...<commit2> 

Replace values for username, repo_name, commit1(old commit) & commit2(new commit) acc. to your project.

The separator between the two commits is ... i.e. 3 dots.

Answer 2

TLDR: Just add /compare at the end of the URL.

You can use the Github Compare UI, which will generate the URL for you. Replace ORG and REPO with your values. The UI only lists branches, but you can also type in any valid Tags (e.g. v1.0.0) or Commit IDs (e.g. 1a2b3c).

https://github.com/ORG/REPO/compare/

---

The URLs that get generated are in this format. You can also manually edit the URL with the REFs.

https://github.com/ORG/REPO/compare/REF1...REF2

You can also use "2 dots" (direct diff) instead of "3 dots" (diff from last common commit). Same as git diff A..B vs git diff A...B.

https://github.com/ORG/REPO/compare/REF1..REF2

If you want to compare across forks, then you need to add ORG2:

https://github.com/ORG/REPO/compare/REF1...ORG2:REF2

There is documentation, but I didn't think it was that clear: https://help.github.com/en/github/committing-changes-to-your-project/comparing-commits-across-time