Check if specific file in git repository has changed

Question

I am novice in dealing with git, but I have a repository that contains a file named \'test\'. I want to check if that specific file has changed. Is there anyway to do that?

Answer 1

You can pass a file or directory name to git diff to see only changes to that file or directory.

If you're "writing a batch file" then the --exit-code switch to git diff may be particularly useful. eg.

git diff --exit-code test

or:

git diff --exit-code path/to/source/dir

Which will return 1 if there are changes to the file named test (or any other specified file or directory) or 0 otherwise. (Allowing a script to branch on the result.)

To see the names of the changed files only (and not a complete diff) use --name-only xor you can use -s to get no output at all, but just the exit code.