Skip to content

How to Configure Git Diff and Merge Tools?¶

| tool | git |

Git can use external tools to perform merge and diff:

Use default tool¶

git difftool   
git mergetool

Use custom tool¶

git difftool -t tool\_name  
git mergetool -t tool\_name

There are tons on diff/merge tools, I’d like highlight git configuration for three of them:

Sample `~/.gitconfig` (Windows)¶

[difftool "kdiff3"]
     path = D:/Tools/KDiff3/kdiff3.exe
     keepBackup = false
     trustExitCode = false
[mergetool "kdiff3"]
     path = D:/Tools/KDiff3/kdiff3.exe
     keepBackup = false
     trustExitCode = false
[difftool "diffmerge"]
     cmd = \"C:/Program Files/SourceGear/Common/DiffMerge/sgdm.exe\"  \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\"
[mergetool "diffmerge"]
     cmd = \"D:/Tools/Git/cmd/git-diffmerge-merge.sh\" \"$BASE\" \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\" \"$MERGED\"
     trustExitCode = false

[diff]
    tool = kdiff3
[merge]
    tool = kdiff3

Content of `git-diffmerge-merge.sh`¶

$cat D:/Tools/Git/cmd/git-diffmerge-merge.sh
#!/bin/sh
localPath="$2"
basePath="$1"
remotePath="$3"
resultPath="$4"
if [ ! -f $basePath ]
then
    basePath="~/diffmerge-empty"
fi
"C:/Program Files/SourceGear/Common/DiffMerge/sgdm.exe" --merge --result="$resultPath" "$localPath" "$basePath" "$remotePath" --title1="Mine" --title2="Merged: $4" --title3="Theirs"

Sample `~/.gitconfig` (OS X)¶

[diff]
    tool = opendiff
[merge]
    tool = opendiff

opendiff is bundled with Xcode Tools.

Sample usage:

$ git difftool -t diffmerge HEAD..HEAD~1

References¶