Diff between branches

[franksands]

Problem description

Depending on the project, the commit tree can get very long and it can be difficult to find the last commit of a branch. This makes it difficult to compare the current branch to another branch

Preferred solution

A new command "Diff with another Branch". This command would list the available branches, just like "Checkout Branch". When the branch is selected, the app would display a diff between the HEAD of the current branch with the HEAD of the selected branch

Alternatives

A way to filter the commit list so that selecting two far apart commits easier.

[srbs]

I have a workaround for you:

Let's say you wanted to diff the branches master & release/1.0. In the location bar:

1. Alt + click the eye next to master to hide all branches but master
2. click the eye next to release/1.0 to also show this branch

Now you can visually see just the changes in both branches and easily diff the two since one is at the top of the list.

(Shamelessly copied & modified from myself here)

[franksands]

Thanks, that a great workaround, very similar to my proposed alternative. I still think the command works be useful and simpler.

[acharron]

It may sound silly, but I've spent 30 minutes trying to find a "Diff" or "Compare" command in the command palette, right clicking on commits in every combination possible, trying every search pattern I could think of. (I'm adding details for others coming here after looking up "sublime merge diff branches")

I didn't realize that selecting 2 commits ( Ctrl + click ) displays the diff between them.
So, to complete @srbs steps for dummies like me:

1. Alt + click the eye next to master to hide all branches but master
2. click the eye next to release/1.0 to also show this branch
3. Click the last commit of the first branch (i.e. master)
4. Ctrl + click the last commit of the second branch (i.e. release/1.0) to select both commits at the same time
5. The diff is displayed on the right (in the commit info lines you will see "Commit Hash" "Tree" "Diffing from" on top of Author, Date, etc.)

The workaround effectively solves the problem, although a command could be useful. I would see the implementation working as follow: (just an idea)

1. Hide all branches except the 2 concerned by the diff
2. Select both commits at the tip of each branch
3. In the commit list, hide the intermediary commits to make it obvious which 2 commits are currently selected if both tips are not visible. Hide the intermediary commits with a "...." icon, that can be clicked to reveal the full list.

[pwinston]

Maybe I'm missing something, but if the branches are "far apart" with many commits in between, then I can't see the tip of both in the display. So I can't click on the tips of both.

That is, I only see the one branch, the other is not visible at all, even though both are marked visible. So I can't see how to diff the two branches in this case. To me this means you can't diff 2 branches in a lot of cases. The sublime merge diff view is so nice, I really wish it had a way to easily diff 2 branches.

[srbs]

@pwinston, let me explain a bit more the logic behind my comment:

My instructions include hiding every branch (, tag, stash, etc) except the two you want to diff. This was chosen to kind of cheat within the design of the user interface to force one of the two branches (the one with the newest commit) to be at the very top of the commit list/tree. Due to this behavior, you can select the older branch (not the top branch) from the location bar & then scroll to the top of the list via a scrollwheel or dragging the scrollbar & then Ctrl/Cmd + click the second commit (at the top).

It's entirely a cheat around the user interface until a command is created or plugin support is added.

[pwinston]

@srbs Wow thanks for your patience in explaining that. It works!

I was correctly showing just the 2 branches. But I was scrolling down and visually looking for the tip of the older one, and it didn't seem to be there. Seemed like history ended before the older branch, although maybe I was just not looking carefully enough. But clicking on the older branch in the Locations pane takes you right there. And then click on the newer one. Great!

[srbs]

@pwinston, not a problem and glad I could help!

[milesrichardson]

Here's another trick, using the or operator in the search bar, for when you want to get two far away commits next to each other in the sidebar.

• Say you have two commits you want to compare:
  • 3c0dada989ddedbc1932b8f3e9313f54612111ef
  • 77b941128cdbb36b749200fd54e2a45cffac4dbb
• Type ctrl+f (or cmd+f) to search, then type this in the search box
• commit:3c0dada989ddedbc1932b8f3e9313f54612111ef or commit:77b941128cdbb36b749200fd54e2a45cffac4dbb
• This will show only those two commits in the sidebar, and you can then ctrl+click (or cmd+click) them to compare the two commits. To see the changeset, you need to change to "contents" view, and you should be able to see a list of all the files on the left, and you can click any one of them to see its changeset.

Here it is on the (massive) v8 codebase. It performs well:

[apothecarius]

I'm currently trying to sum up the changes of my feature branch and cannot use this feature. There are changes that don't show up when I select all the commits that I did. In my branch I have reverted many changes in later commits, but some of these reverts don't show up either

Steps to reproduce:

• Make a new empty repository
• Make a commit with a new empty textfile
• Make a commit with added text
• Make a commit with that text removed again

I would expect that selecting the two last commits together would show changes, but instead it shows only the removal of that text.

Client Version is 1119 from stable branch

[srbs]

@apothecarius, that is the correct behavior. Let me take a stab at explaining:

Let's name the commits A, B, & C.

These are the diffs you would see in the UI if you selected a single commit:
A. blank test.txt added
B. 5 lines added to text.txt
C. 5 lines removed from text.txt

However, when you select two commits in Sublime Merge, other git tools, or run git diff <commit 1>..<commit 2> the contents of the two commit are compared.

Commit contents:
A. text.txt, a blank file
B. text.txt, a file with 5 lines
C. text.txt, a blank file

If B & C are selected, the differences between the two commits are just 5 lines removed. If A & B are selected, the differences are just 5 lines added. You'll note that these two selections are identical to the B & C in the diffs above. If you want the changes of two diffs combined, you'll need to compare A & C. in this example.

[apothecarius]

@srbs thank you for clarifying
So I have to mark the commit from where I made the branch, not my own first commit. That actually works.

[manuelbua]

Is a git diff command in the works for the command palette? Another interesting idea would be to add two menu items at commit right-click when another commit has the focus, so that one item is for "Diff selected with this" and the other is for "Diff this with selected", to be able to choose the diff direction.