Git command for determining differences in files.

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davidcole

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#277335 8-Oct-2020 14:26

I'm working on a script that will copy from a cloned git repository to an external folder.

I can get the files changed with

git diff --diff-filter=M --name-only /git/folder /e/folder

/git/folder has 1 file in it, a config file.

/e/folder has the config file and others (binaries etc).

What I want to know if if I can get if the /e/folder has something in it only. If /git/folder has modifications then that's allowed as I'll copy that file over to top. But I want to detected that a modification has been made to e/folder which is the dest, and stop the process so the user can sort it out. I can't easily use the repository for holding the config and the binaries.

I'm trying to source control configuration files on servers to be able to track changes etc to them, and later automate their deployment.

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spmiller

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#2581362 8-Oct-2020 14:39

If you want to check if the E folder's file contents is the same as a revision that already exists in the repository, you could use git show to get an older revision and compare the two.

davidcole

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#2581720 9-Oct-2020 07:15

So git show, shows the files changed in the last commit? But what if there's been multiple commits that haven't been applied to e?

This is why i assumed I needed diff, but I only care about a diff where teh result is a + or -, depending on the direction of the diff I can show just modifications, but you don't seem to be able to ignore all + or -...as then I'd be able to say, yes the e version has had a a modification so stop.....

marpada

337 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2581795 9-Oct-2020 10:01

Is /e/folder a regular folder or a git repository (remote)? If the former I don't think any git command will show you the difference between the two, but you can use the regular diff command to compare them or rsync to copy the changes back and forth.

davidcole

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#2581804 9-Oct-2020 10:24

marpada:

Is /e/folder a regular folder or a git repository (remote)? If the former I don't think any git command will show you the difference between the two, but you can use the regular diff command to compare them or rsync to copy the changes back and forth.

/e/folder is reguler and git diff does seem to sucessfully comppare working copy to the regular folder.

So if theres a difference in the working copy it does:

--- a/Common/Apps/ArchiveMerge/config.xml
+++ b/E:/Apps/ArchiveMerge/config.xml
-

And if the other way around

--- a/Common/Apps/ArchiveMerge/config.xml
+++ b/E:/Apps/ArchiveMerge/config.xml
+

But Ideally for my script to work, I'm happy for the - to be ignored, as I'm about to sort that.....but if I see the +  I want to stop and alert the user.

davidcole

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#2581818 9-Oct-2020 10:56

So this might be ridicuously hacky....but I think I can now Identify the b side changes:

git diff --output-indicator-new=~ --diff-filter=M Common/Apps/ /e/Apps/ | cut -c1 | grep -e \~

Changes the new indicator to ~ and then I go looking for that character which is a change on working copy side.