shell

Git bash: Clear screen and show diff

Posted on by kjartan

I just added another little convenience command for Git Bash. This is for clearing the screen and showing the diff (changes) in your branch. I added support for a parameter so you can use it either to show all differences, show the changes for a specific file, or append some other parameter to it (see the examples below).

Here`s the code itself – append it to your .bash_profile file, then restart your git bash:

cdiff(){
    clear
    if [ "$1" ]; then
        git diff "${1}"
    else
        git diff
    fi
}

Examples of usage:

cdiff # Will clear screen and show all changes not added

cdiff --cached # Will clear screen and show changes in added files

cdiff my-file.xyz # Wil clear and show changes for the specified file

cdiff --name-only # Will clear, then list all changed files (not added)

A use case for bash functions with git on Windows

Posted on by kjartan

When you open a Git Bash shell, it will typically open under your home directory, as indicated by a yellow tilda (~) at the end of the command line.

Side-note tip if you’re new to unix type shells:
~ refers back to your home directory – e.g. C:\users\YourUserName\ under Windows, so entering cd ~/SomeDirectory from any location will always change your current dir back to c:\users\SomeDirectory.

For my part, I’ve got most of my projects and source code under a directory called “source“, and all my git-projects below that again in a directory called repos. This means that each time I open the git shell to do any work, the first thing I need to do is change directory using: cd source/repos/TargetRepo where TargetRepo would be the name of a given project.

This is not a big deal, but it would be better if I could simplify the process of moving to whichever project I wanted to. I could do just that thanks to this simple solution found on Stack Overflow (new window). I’m expanding slightly on it here so I know I’ll find it if I need it again, and because I’m convinced it can be useful to others too.

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