How to git diff between tags

Understanding Tags and Git Diff

Tags in Git are references to specific points in a repository's commit history, usually used to mark release points (v1.0, v2.0, etc.). You can use the git diff command to compare two snapshots of a project and examine the difference between these points.

How to diff between two Git tags

Here’s how you can use Git to compare the differences between two tags:

Step 1: List available tags

To start, you might want to list the available tags in your repository to identify which tags you want to compare.

git tag

This command will display all tags in your repository, allowing you to choose the ones you're interested in comparing.

Step 2: Compare two tags

To see the differences between two tags, use the git diff command followed by the tag names.

git diff tag1 tag2

Replace tag1 and tag2 with the names of the tags you want to compare. This will show you the diff output directly in your terminal, indicating what has changed from tag1 to tag2.

Example:

git diff v1.0 v2.0

This command compares the project state between two releases, showing changes made from version 1.0 to 2.0.

Advanced usage: diffs involving specific commits

While the basic git diff tag1 tag2 is useful for local repositories, you might need more complex comparisons, involving specific commits between tags.

Git diff commits between tags

To see the list of commits between two tags, which can help you understand the progression of changes, use:

git log tag1..tag2 --oneline

This will list the commits between tag1 and tag2, providing a concise summary of each commit. If you want to see the detailed differences introduced by each of these commits, you can use:

git log tag1..tag2 -p

The -p option shows the patch representing each commit, essentially showing the git diff for each commit in the range.

For further reading see the official Git documentation.