Normal diff, the default

Reverse the sides of the diff

Include ignored files in the diff

Even with GIT_DIFF_INCLUDE_IGNORED, an entire ignored directory will be marked with only a single entry in the diff; this flag adds all files under the directory as IGNORED entries, too.

Include untracked files in the diff

Even with GIT_DIFF_INCLUDE_UNTRACKED, an entire untracked directory will be marked with only a single entry in the diff (a la what core Git does in git status); this flag adds all files under untracked directories as UNTRACKED entries, too.

Include unmodified files in the diff

Normally, a type change between files will be converted into a DELETED record for the old and an ADDED record for the new; this options enabled the generation of TYPECHANGE delta records.

Even with GIT_DIFF_INCLUDE_TYPECHANGE, blob->tree changes still generally show as a DELETED blob. This flag tries to correctly label blob->tree transitions as TYPECHANGE records with new_file's mode set to tree. Note: the tree SHA will not be available.

Ignore file mode changes

Treat all submodules as unmodified

Use case insensitive filename comparisons

If the pathspec is set in the diff options, this flags means to apply it as an exact match instead of as an fnmatch pattern.

Disable updating of the binary flag in delta records. This is useful when iterating over a diff if you don't need hunk and data callbacks and want to avoid having to load file completely.

When diff finds an untracked directory, to match the behavior of core Git, it scans the contents for IGNORED and UNTRACKED files. If all contents are IGNORED, then the directory is IGNORED; if any contents are not IGNORED, then the directory is UNTRACKED. This is extra work that may not matter in many cases. This flag turns off that scan and immediately labels an untracked directory as UNTRACKED (changing the behavior to not match core Git).

When diff finds a file in the working directory with stat information different from the index, but the OID ends up being the same, write the correct stat information into the index. Note: without this flag, diff will always leave the index untouched.

Treat all files as text, disabling binary attributes & detection

Treat all files as binary, disabling text diffs

Ignore all whitespace

Ignore changes in amount of whitespace

Ignore whitespace at end of line

When generating patch text, include the content of untracked files. This automatically turns on GIT_DIFF_INCLUDE_UNTRACKED but it does not turn on GIT_DIFF_RECURSE_UNTRACKED_DIRS. Add that flag if you want the content of every single UNTRACKED file.

When generating output, include the names of unmodified files if they are included in the git_diff. Normally these are skipped in the formats that list files (e.g. name-only, name-status, raw). Even with this, these will not be included in patch format.

Use the "patience diff" algorithm

Take extra time to find minimal diff

Include the necessary deflate / delta information so that git-apply can apply given diff information to binary files.