How to compare two tags with git?

Question

I would like to do a diff between two tags and committed changes between those two tags. Could you please tell me the command?

score 891 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 23 '21 at 05:42

891

$ git diff tag1 tag2

or show log between them:

$ git log tag1..tag2

sometimes it may be convenient to see only the list of files that were changed:

$ git diff tag1 tag2 --stat

and then look at the differences for some particular file:

$ git diff tag1 tag2 -- some/file/name

A tag is only a reference to the latest commit 'on that tag', so that you are doing a diff on the commits between them.

(Make sure to do git pull --tags first)

edited Mar 23 '21 at 05:42

Jason Capriotti

answered Jul 09 '10 at 10:40

gauteh

2

@kaiser lol! btw, I would like to add this tip to compare whole directories from within `git gui` at "tools/add" like `git difftool -d $REVISION`! and to link [this answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/2006241/1422630) too – Aquarius Power Jun 20 '14 at 06:09
Is there a way to make the `git log` command only show additional commits, not shared commits? – CMCDragonkai Dec 28 '15 at 08:48
@CMCDragonkai that is what this command does, it shows the additional commits on tag2 since tag1. – gauteh Dec 28 '15 at 16:27
In my use, it showed all shared commits and additional commits without any distinction between the 2. – CMCDragonkai Dec 29 '15 at 04:32
@CMCDragonkai: perhaps you are looking for the `--cherry` argument. – gauteh Jan 15 '16 at 14:38
2

Also useful: simply `git diff tag1` gives differences between tag1 and working directory; `git diff tag1 HEAD` differences between tag1 and most recent commit. – ChrisV Mar 24 '16 at 15:59
And: `gitk` (or `gitg`) makes browsing commits between tags easy. – ChrisV Mar 24 '16 at 16:08
`git diff tag1 tag2 --stat=1000` by adding `=1000` you allow the file names to show in their entirety – jsgoupil Oct 13 '20 at 16:30
amazing how intuitive git commands are (at least some of them :)) – Jean-François Fabre Jan 27 '21 at 13:50
if you want to just see the list of files changed its `--name-only` before the two – Ridhwaan Shakeel Apr 25 '21 at 02:59

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered May 19 '16 at 00:04

12

answered May 19 '16 at 00:04

Nakilon

is there any way to do this without the 250 commit limit? – TheTechRobo Stands for Ukraine Dec 28 '20 at 15:35

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 13 '18 at 13:42

For a side-by-side visual representation, I use git difftool with openDiff set to the default viewer.

Example usage:

git difftool tags/<FIRST TAG> tags/<SECOND TAG>

If you are only interested in a specific file, you can use:

git difftool tags/<FIRST TAG>:<FILE PATH> tags/<SECOND TAG>:<FILE PATH>

As a side-note, the tags/<TAG>s can be replaced with <BRANCH>es if you are interested in diffing branches.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 27 '20 at 07:39

1

As @Nakilon said, their is a comparing tool built in github if that's what you use.

To use it, append the url of the repo with "/compare".

answered Nov 27 '20 at 07:39

Lulupointu

1

is there any way to do this without the 250 commit limit? – TheTechRobo Stands for Ukraine Dec 28 '20 at 15:34

4 Answers4