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When I want to get git diff files, I found someone use
git diff-index --cached --diff-filter=AM --name-only HEAD
and if I use
git diff --cached --diff-filter=AM --name-only HEAD
can get the same result.
So what's the difference between git diff and git diff-index?
When you must use git diff-index but not git diff?
326
git diff-index is a diff against the index or working tree: Compares the content and mode of the blobs found in a tree object with the corresponding tracked files in the working tree, or with the corresponding paths in the index.
git diff --staged will only show changes to files in the "staged" area. git diff HEAD will show all changes to tracked files. If you have all changes staged for commit, then both commands will output the same.
The git diff command helps you see, compare, and understand changes in your project. You can use it in many different situations, e.g. to look at current changes in your working copy, past changes in commits, or even to compare branches.
The git diff HEAD [filename] command allows you to compare the file version in your working directory with the file version last committed in your remote repository. The HEAD in the git command refers to the remote repository.
git diff-index is a diff against the index or working tree:
Compares the content and mode of the blobs found in a tree object with the corresponding tracked files in the working tree, or with the corresponding paths in the index
git diff is more versatile and can compare two files, or two commits, or (like diff-index) a tree and the index.
In your case, a diff HEAD would indeed diff HEAD against the index, which diff-index does too.
74
diff-index is a lower level operation that does less but is much faster because it doesn't look at the content, it only checks metadata like timestamps. Only Linux you can verify this with something like:
strace -f -e file -o diff-index.log git diff-index HEAD
wc diff-index.log
less diff-index.log
Forget about diff-index unless you have some git performance problem to solve.
https://git-scm.com/docs/git-update-index#_using_assume_unchanged_bit
https://public-inbox.org/git/[email protected]/
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