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Diff mode is a major mode used for the output of M-x diff and other similar commands. This kind of output is called a patch, because it can be passed to the patch command to automatically apply the specified changes. To select Diff mode manually, type M-x diff-mode.
The changes specified in a patch are grouped into hunks, which are contiguous chunks of text that contain one or more changed lines. Hunks usually also include unchanged lines to provide context for the changes. Each hunk is preceded by a hunk header, which specifies the old and new line numbers where the hunk's changes occur. Diff mode highlights each hunk header, to distinguish it from the actual contents of the hunk.
The first hunk in a patch is preceded by a file header, which shows the names of the new and the old versions of the file, and their time stamps. If a patch shows changes for more than one file, each file has such a header before the first hunk of that file's changes.
You can edit a Diff mode buffer like any other buffer. (If it is
read-only, you need to make it writable first; see Misc Buffer.)
Whenever you edit a hunk, Diff mode attempts to automatically correct
the line numbers in the hunk headers, to ensure that the patch remains
correct, and could still be applied by patch. To disable
automatic line number correction, change the variable
diff-update-on-the-fly to nil.
Diff mode arranges for hunks to be treated as compiler error messages by C-x ` and other commands that handle error messages (see Compilation Mode). Thus, you can use the compilation-mode commands to visit the corresponding source locations.
In addition, Diff mode provides the following commands to navigate, manipulate and apply parts of patches:
diff-hunk-next). With prefix
argument n, move forward to the nth next hunk.
This command has a side effect: it refines the hunk you move to, highlighting its changes with better granularity. To disable this feature, type M-x diff-auto-refine-mode to toggle off the minor mode Diff Auto-Refine mode. To disable Diff Auto-Refine mode by default, add this to your init file (see Hooks):
(add-hook 'diff-mode-hook
(lambda () (diff-auto-refine-mode -1)))
diff-hunk-prev). With prefix
argument n, move back to the nth previous hunk. Like
M-n, this has the side-effect of refining the hunk you move to,
unless you disable Diff Auto-Refine mode.
diff-file-next). With prefix argument n, move forward
to the start of the nth next file.
diff-file-prev). With prefix argument n, move back to
the start of the nth previous file.
diff-hunk-kill).
diff-file-kill).
diff-apply-hunk). With a
prefix argument of C-u, revert this hunk, i.e. apply the
reverse of the hunk, which changes the “new” version into the “old”
version. If diff-jump-to-old-file is non-nil, apply the
hunk to the “old” version of the file instead.
diff-refine-hunk). This allows you to see exactly which parts
of each changed line were actually changed.
diff-goto-source). By default, this jumps to the “new”
version of the file, the one shown first on the file header.
With a prefix argument, jump to the “old” version instead. If
diff-jump-to-old-file is non-nil, this command by
default jumps to the “old” file, and the meaning of the prefix
argument is reversed. If the prefix argument is a number greater than
8 (e.g., if you type C-u C-u C-c C-c), then this command also
sets diff-jump-to-old-file for the next invocation.
diff-ediff-patch).
See Ediff.
diff-restrict-view).
See Narrowing. With a prefix argument, restrict the
view to the current file of a multiple-file patch. To widen again,
use C-x n w (widen).
diff-reverse-direction). With a prefix argument, reverse the
direction only inside the current region (see Mark). Reversing
the direction means changing the hunks and the file-start headers to
produce a patch that would change the “new” version into the “old”
one.
diff-split-hunk) into two separate
hunks. This inserts a hunk header and modifies the header of the
current hunk. This command is useful for manually editing patches,
and only works with the unified diff format produced by the
-u or --unified options to the diff
program. If you need to split a hunk in the context diff format
produced by the -c or --context options to
diff, first convert the buffer to the unified diff format
with C-c C-u.
diff-unified->context). With a prefix argument, convert only
the hunks within the region.
diff-context->unified). With a prefix argument, convert
unified format to context format. When the mark is active, convert
only the hunks within the region.
diff-ignore-whitespace-hunk).
diff-add-change-log-entries-other-window). This creates a
skeleton of the log of changes that you can later fill with the actual
descriptions of the changes. C-x 4 a itself in Diff mode
operates on behalf of the current hunk's file, but gets the function
name from the patch itself. This is useful for making log entries for
functions that are deleted by the patch.
Patches sometimes include trailing whitespace on modified lines, as an unintentional and undesired change. There are two ways to deal with this problem. Firstly, if you enable Whitespace mode in a Diff buffer (see Useless Whitespace), it automatically highlights trailing whitespace in modified lines. Secondly, you can use the command M-x diff-delete-trailing-whitespace, which searches for trailing whitespace in the lines modified by the patch, and removes that whitespace in both the patch and the patched source file(s). This command does not save the modifications that it makes, so you can decide whether to save the changes (the list of modified files is displayed in the echo area). With a prefix argument, it tries to modify the original (“old”) source files rather than the patched (“new”) source files.