Re: how to diff versions of a file

david@lang.hm writes:

I don't think it's trivial

I think you meant to say it _is_ trivial.

If you just wanted three commits ago you could do

git diff HEAD..HEAD^^^ tree.c

That would give you a reverse diff; I think you probably meant the other
way around, "git diff HEAD~3 HEAD tree.c".

but three changes to tree.c ago I think you need to do multiple
iterations of git blame to find out what commit was three edits ago.

git diff $(git rev-list -3 HEAD -- tree.c | sed -n -e '$p') HEAD -- tree.c

This assumes that the history is linear but your statement "three edits
ago" already assumes that, so...

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 01:34, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

david@lang.hm writes:

quoted

I don't think it's trivial

I think you meant to say it _is_ trivial.

quoted

If you just wanted three commits ago you could do

git diff HEAD..HEAD^^^ tree.c

That would give you a reverse diff; I think you probably meant the other
way around, "git diff HEAD~3 HEAD tree.c".

quoted

but three changes to tree.c ago I think you need to do multiple
iterations of git blame to find out what commit was three edits ago.

git diff $(git rev-list -3 HEAD -- tree.c | sed -n -e '$p') HEAD -- tree.c

This assumes that the history is linear but your statement "three edits
ago" already assumes that, so...

Thanks Junio, this is exactly what I was asking for.

And thanks for the tip about it depending on the history being linear.