Showing which files have changed between two revisions

Question

I want to merge two branches that have been separated for a while and wanted to know which files have been modified.

Came across this link: http://linux.yyz.us/git-howto.html which was quite useful.

The tools to compare branches I've come across are:

• git diff master..branch
• git log master..branch
• git shortlog master..branch

Was wondering if there's something like "git status master..branch" to only see those files that are different between the two branches.

Without creating a new tool, I think this is the closest you can get to do that now (which of course will show repeats if a file was modified more than once):

• git diff master..branch | grep "^diff"

Was wondering if there's something I missed...

Answer 1

To compare the current branch against main branch:

$ git diff --name-status main 

To compare any two branches:

$ git diff --name-status firstbranch..yourBranchName 

There is more options to git diff in the official documentation (and specifically --name-status option).