This documentation was written to describe Subversion 1.0. If you are running a newer version of Subversion, we strongly suggest that you visit http://www.svnbook.com/ and consult the version of this book appropriate for your version of Subversion.
svn diff — Display the differences between two paths.
svn diff [-r N[:M]] [--old OLD-TGT] [--new NEW-TGT] [PATH...]
svn diff -r N:M URL
svn diff [-r N[:M]] URL1[@N] URL2[@M]
Display the differences between two paths. The three different ways you can use svn diff are:
svn diff [-r N[:M]] [--old OLD-TGT] [--new NEW-TGT] [PATH...] displays the differences between OLD-TGT and NEW-TGT. If PATHs are given, they are treated as relative to OLD-TGT and NEW-TGT and the output is restricted to differences in only those paths. OLD-TGT and NEW-TGT may be working copy paths or URL[@REV]. OLD-TGT defaults to the current working directory and NEW-TGT defaults to OLD-TGT. N defaults to BASE or, if OLD-TGT is a URL, to HEAD. M defaults to the current working version or, if NEW-TGT is a URL, to HEAD. svn diff -r N sets the revision of OLD-TGT to N, svn diff -r N:M also sets the revision of NEW-TGT to M.
svn diff -r N:M URL is shorthand for svn diff -r N:M --old=URL --new=URL.
svn diff [-r N[:M]] URL1[@N] URL2[@M] is shorthand for svn diff [-r N[:M]] --old=URL1 --new=URL2.
If TARGET is a URL, then revs N and M can be given either via the --revision or by using “@” notation as described earlier.
If TARGET is a working copy path, then the --revision switch means:
The server compares TARGET@N and TARGET@M.
The client compares TARGET@N against working copy.
The client compares base and working copies of TARGET.
If the alternate syntax is used, the server compares URL1 and URL2 at revisions N and M respectively. If either N or M are omitted, a value of HEAD is assumed.
By default, svn diff ignores the ancestry of files and merely compares the contents of the two files being compared. If you use --notice-ancestry, the ancestry of the paths in question will be taken into consideration when comparing revisions (that is, if you run svn diff on two files with identical contents but different ancestry you will see the entire contents of the file as having been removed and added again).
For obtaining differences against anything but BASE revision in your working copy
--revision (-r) REV --old OLD-TARGET --new NEW-TARGET --extensions (-x) "ARGS" --non-recursive (-N) --diff-cmd CMD --notice-ancestry --username USER --password PASS --no-auth-cache --non-interactive --no-diff-deleted --config-dir DIR
Compare BASE and your working copy (one of the most popular uses of svn diff):
$ svn diff COMMITTERS Index: COMMITTERS =================================================================== --- COMMITTERS (revision 4404) +++ COMMITTERS (working copy)
See how your working copy's modifications compare against an older revision:
$ svn diff -r 3900 COMMITTERS Index: COMMITTERS =================================================================== --- COMMITTERS (revision 3900) +++ COMMITTERS (working copy)
Compare revision 3000 to revision 3500 using “@” syntax:
$ svn diff http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk/COMMITTERS@3000 http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk/COMMITTERS@3500 Index: COMMITTERS =================================================================== --- COMMITTERS (revision 3000) +++ COMMITTERS (revision 3500) …
Compare revision 3000 to revision 3500 using range notation (you only pass the one URL in this case):
$ svn diff -r 3000:3500 http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk/COMMITTERS Index: COMMITTERS =================================================================== --- COMMITTERS (revision 3000) +++ COMMITTERS (revision 3500)
Compare revision 3000 to revision 3500 of all files in trunk using range notation:
$ svn diff -r 3000:3500 http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk
Compare revision 3000 to revision 3500 of only three files in trunk using range notation:
$ svn diff -r 3000:3500 --old http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk COMMITTERS README HACKING
If you have a working copy, you can obtain the differences without typing in the long URLs:
$ svn diff -r 3000:3500 COMMITTERS Index: COMMITTERS =================================================================== --- COMMITTERS (revision 3000) +++ COMMITTERS (revision 3500)
Use --diff-cmd CMD -x to pass arguments directly to the external diff program
$ svn diff --diff-cmd /usr/bin/diff -x "-i -b" COMMITTERS Index: COMMITTERS =================================================================== 0a1,2 > This is a test >