How to grep the git diff?

Question

Is there a way to show the git-diff filtered by a given pattern.

Something like

git grepdiff pattern

changed file
+++ some sentence with pattern
change         


        

Answer 1

I think your approach to "grep" diff output is the best workaround.

You may improve your awk script by using sed:

colored="(^[\[[0-9;]*[a-zA-Z])"
marker="^$colored+diff"
pattern="^$colored+.*(\+|\-).*PATTERN"
git diff --color | sed -rn -e "/$marker/! H; /$marker/ ba; $ ba; b; :a; x; /$pattern/ p"

• colored: regex to match terminal colored lines
• marker: marker to match division from differents diff hunks, lines starting with colored "diff"
• pattern: pattern to search for, lines starting with colored "+" or "-" and containing "PATTERN"

This will print full diff hunks, with added or removed PATTERN, also maintaining useful colored output.

Note that ^[ in colored should be actual, literal ^[. You can type them in bash by pressing Ctrl + V, Ctrl + [