Re: how to diff versions of a file

[Matt Graham <mdg149@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 01:34, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> david@lang.hm writes:
>
>> I don't think it's trivial
>
> I think you meant to say it _is_ trivial.
>
>> If you just wanted three commits ago you could do
>>
>> git diff HEAD..HEAD^^^ tree.c
>
> That would give you a reverse diff; I think you probably meant the other
> way around, "git diff HEAD~3 HEAD tree.c".
>
>> but three changes to tree.c ago I think you need to do multiple
>> iterations of git blame to find out what commit was three edits ago.
>
> git diff $(git rev-list -3 HEAD -- tree.c | sed -n -e '$p') HEAD -- tree.c
>
> This assumes that the history is linear but your statement "three edits
> ago" already assumes that, so...

Thanks Junio, this is exactly what I was asking for.

And thanks for the tip about it depending on the history being linear.