git diff for working directory changes - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Using git diff to See Working Directory Changes

📖 Scenario: You are working on a project using Git for version control. You want to check what changes you have made in your files before committing them.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to use the git diff command to see the changes in your working directory compared to the staging area.

📋 What You'll Learn

Have a Git repository initialized

Have at least one file tracked by Git

Make some changes to a tracked file

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Checking changes before committing helps avoid mistakes and keeps your project history clean.

💼 Career

Understanding <code>git diff</code> is essential for developers and DevOps engineers to review code changes effectively.

1

Create a file and add initial content

Create a file called notes.txt with the exact content: Hello World.

Git

# Create a file called notes.txt with the content 'Hello World'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

You can use the echo command to write text to a file.

2

Add the file to Git tracking

Run the command git add notes.txt to start tracking the file in Git.

Git

echo "Hello World" > notes.txt
# Add notes.txt to Git tracking
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git add followed by the file name to stage the file.

3

Modify the file content

Change the content of notes.txt to exactly: Hello Git.

Git

echo "Hello World" > notes.txt
git add notes.txt
# Change content of notes.txt to 'Hello Git'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use echo again to overwrite the file content.

4

Use git diff to see changes

Run the command git diff to display the changes made in notes.txt compared to the last staged version.

Git

echo "Hello World" > notes.txt
git add notes.txt
echo "Hello Git" > notes.txt
# Run git diff to see changes
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The output will show lines removed with a - and lines added with a +.