How do I output the difference between two specific revisions in Subversion?

Question

I'm using Subversion via the Linux command line interface.

I want to see the difference between revision 11390 and 8979 of a specific file called fSupplierModel.php in my terminal. How can I do that?

Add here is how to apply it back: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10333712/how-to-make-and-apply-svn-patch — Vadzim, Dec 19 '17 at 08:11

score 184 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 04 '16 at 09:36

184

See svn diff in the manual:

svn diff -r 8979:11390 http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk/fSupplierModel.php

edited Feb 04 '16 at 09:36

bahrep

answered Jul 24 '12 at 15:57

D'Arcy Rittich

3

If you want pretty output, install [colordiff](http://www.colordiff.org) and add ` | colordiff` to the end of the above command to pipe everything through it. – William Turrell Sep 28 '16 at 19:25

ahnbizcad · Answer 2 · 2017-01-20T18:58:01.347

66

To compare entire revisions, it's simply:

svn diff -r 8979:11390

If you want to compare the last committed state against your currently saved working files, you can use convenience keywords:

svn diff -r PREV:HEAD

(Note, without anything specified afterwards, all files in the specified revisions are compared.)

You can compare a specific file if you add the file path afterwards:

svn diff -r 8979:HEAD /path/to/my/file.php

edited Jan 20 '17 at 18:58

answered Jun 02 '15 at 23:38

ahnbizcad

2

putting HEAD:PREV seemed to make more sense to me in the diff output, maybe will help others – Fonix Dec 02 '16 at 02:27
@Fonix are you in the paradigm of "how does another commit differ from my current state"? If so, I agree. I usually think of chronological changes commits, so changes made in HEAD would have been the new/added changes from PREV, which is the paradigm I usually think in. There are cases and arguments to be made for either paradigm. – ahnbizcad Jul 05 '18 at 17:31
when you do git diff, it shows you what you added relative to a previous commit. PREV:HEAD makes more sense, but this is one of those things where some people prefer inverting the up and down controls for a joystick or trackpad. subjective idiosyncratic preference. – ahnbizcad Mar 10 '21 at 19:32
weirdly enough, i am one of those people who use an inverted mouse when playing FPS games :P – Fonix Mar 15 '21 at 14:38
that would explain it :P – ahnbizcad Jun 03 '21 at 20:04

2 Answers2