Re: How to diff 2 file revisions with gitk

[Sitaram Chamarty <sitaramc@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 9:27 PM, R. Diez <rdiezmail-buspirate@yahoo.de> wrote:
> Hi there:
>
> I asked a few days ago whether I could easily diff 2 file revisions with the mouse in gitk, but I got no reply yet, see here:
>
>
>    How to diff two file revisions with the mouse (with gitk)
>    https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/git-users/9znsQsTB0dE
>
> I am hoping that it was the wrong mailing list, and this one the right one. 8-)
>
> Here is the full question text again:
>
> --------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------
>
> I would like to start gitk, select with the mouse 2
> revisions of some file and then compare them, hopefully with an external
>  diff tool, very much like I am used to with WinCVS.
>
> The closest I
>  got is to start gitk with a filename as an argument, in order to
> restrict the log to that one file. Then I right-click on a commit (a
> file revision) and choose "Mark this commit". However, if I right-click
> on another commit and choose "Compare with marked commit", I get a full
> commit diff with all files, and not just the file I specified on the
> command-line arguments.
>
> Selecting a filename in the "Tree" view and choosing "Highlight this only", as I found on the Internet, does not seem to help.
>
> I have git 1.7.9 (on Cygwin). Can someone help?
>
> By the way, it would be nice if gitk could launch the external diff tool from the "Compare with marked commit" option too.

I don't know if I misunderstood the whole question because the answer
is very simple.

  - start gitk
  - left click the newer commit
  - scroll to the older commit
  - right click the older commit and choose "Diff this -> selected"
  - in the bottom right pane, pick any file, right click, and choose
"External diff".