[Q] Comparing differences introduced by two commits?

[Brian Foster <brian.foster@maxim-ic.com>]

Hello,

 I have two commits A and B.  They are on separate branches.
 Commit A is a older version of B.  I want to see what, if
 any, differences there are between what commit A changes
 and what commit B changes.  (The relative positions of
 two commits may also differ in the two branches; that is, 
 there may have been some commit re-ordering.)

 Ideally, the contents of the commit-message are also taken
 into account (albeit things like the commit-Id, dates, and
 so on will differ and therefore should be ignored).

 I realize the history leading up to each commit can itself
 cause what the commits change to differ, even if the "net
 result" of the two commits is the same.  For my purposes,
 this is a noise issue, and I'm happy to consider A and B 
 as not causing the same changes (i.e., as being different),
 albeit if the only difference is the line numbers, then it
 would be nice to ignore that.

 In the past I've done:

    diff <(git show A) <(git show B)

 which produces rather messy output but is Ok when dealing
 with just one or two sets of A/B commits.  I now have a
 large-ist set of A/B commits, and the above is impractical.

 Some searching hasn't found any suggestions I'm too happy
 with, albeit I've very possibly overlooked something.

 Any suggestions?
cheers!
	-blf-

-- 
Brian Foster
Principal MTS, Software        |  La Ciotat, France
Maxim Integrated Products      |  Web:  http://www.maxim-ic.com/