Git - Get the difference between branches of two repositories

Question

How can we get the list of files differences between two branches residing in two separate repositories

Scenario: Suppose we have 2 repositories 'A' & 'B', B was created from A since A is the base repo. Now the development work has been taking place since long on both this repositories 'A' with branch 'support/v1' and 'B' with branch 'master'. I want to find and check which files are missing with 'B'. In short need an list of files difference between branches of this two repo.

repo  branches
A   => support/v1
B   => master

Need help to find the list of files using git

Add both repos as remotes, fetch from them, then do `git diff B/master A/support/v1`. — Thomas, Sep 21 '22 at 09:31
@MeenaPanchal your question states "B was created from A, since A is the base repo". But your comment says "completely different repos". Which one is it? Do they share common history or not? — knittl, Sep 21 '22 at 09:39
@knittl No they don't actually share any common history. B was created with reference to A. I mean using the file and structure from A. They are separate entities — Mitul Panchal, Sep 21 '22 at 09:54

knittl · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-21T11:34:21.400

1

Add both repos as a remote in your local repository and then run diff like you would for any other branches:

git clone pathorurl/to/A.git
cd A
git remote add B pathorurl/to/B.git
git fetch --all
git diff origin/support/v1 B/master

This will work for any two repositories, because git diff only looks at tree objects and is not interested in commit history.

edited Sep 21 '22 at 11:34

answered Sep 21 '22 at 09:32

knittl

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 21 '22 at 09:32

What you need to do is have a 3rd repo that can see them both as remotes... or take one of them and add the other as a remote. Once you fetch the remote (or remotes, if having a 3rd repo with the 2 remotes), you should be able to see differences between whatever branches.

So... using the third repo approach:

git clone A some-directory
cd some-directory
# this repo has repo A as _origin_
git remote add repoB url-to-b
git fetch repoB
# now you can take branches and compare them (among many other things you can do)
git diff origin/support/v1 repoB/master

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 21 '22 at 09:36

0

If git history was retained, you can try git diff as other answers suggest. If there was no git history, and was a separate commit, then you may try tools like Win Merge to compare the folders/files line by line. Also, some IDE's like IntelliJ Idea support this.

answered Sep 21 '22 at 09:36

RMNull

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`git diff` does not care about common histories. It can compare two commits even if there is no common history behind them. – j6t Sep 21 '22 at 10:07

Git - Get the difference between branches of two repositories

3 Answers3