Question

I am trying to get git diff to work on Windows 7 64 bit. When I run the following commands from a windows command prompt:

C:\temp\mygrit>git diff

or

C:\temp\mygrit>git difftool

I get no output and no external program launches. Here is my .gitconfig file:

[diff]
    tool = bc3
[difftool]
    prompt = false
[difftool "bc3"]
    cmd = \"c:/program files (x86)/beyond compare 3/bcomp.exe\" \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\"

I get the same results if I remove all these lines from .gitconfig.

Any idea what’s going on?

Answer 1

OK, simple answer. The default behaviour for git diff is to show the all files which have been modified but not staged. If you have no modified files then there is no output.

git difftool uses the output of git diff so if there’s no output from the previous command git difftool will do nothing as well.

Solution: Change some files but don’t stage them, re run the commands. If there are problems with your config file they will show up then.