9

Since git diff in powershell mostly results in a unreadable amount of whitespace or strange characters, I installed Perforce P4Merge, to handle merging and diff.

However, I can't make git diff open the p4merge application to view the diff in. So far my .gitconfig looks like this:

[diff]
    tool = p4diff

[difftool "p4diff"]
    external = 'C:/PROGRA~1/Perforce/p4merge.exe "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE"'
    prompt = false

[merge]
    keepBackup = false
    tool = p4merge

[mergetool "p4merge"]
    cmd = "$BASE" "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$MERGED"
    path = 'C:/PROGRA~1/Perforce/p4merge.exe'
    prompt = false
    keepBackup = false
    keepTemporaries = false
    trustExitCode = false

The paths are correct. But alas, git still attempts to present the diff in Powershell, when using git diff.

So what's the trick to make this work?

Claus Jørgensen
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  • Related post - How to [configure a diff tool in Git in general](https://stackoverflow.com/q/6412516/465053). – RBT Apr 05 '18 at 23:48

5 Answers5

12

In your command prompt, try: git config --global diff.tool p4diff

That worked for me, using a config file set up as you had described:

[diff]  
    tool = p4merge  
[difftool "p4diff"]  
    external = '"C:/Program Files/Perforce/p4merge.exe" "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE"'

Running git difftool opened p4merge as expected.

Ref: How do I view 'git diff' output with a visual diff program?

Community
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Kenny Trytek
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    shouldn't it be `tool = p4diff`? That's also what you get when you enter the command `git config --global diff.tool p4diff` – leo Jul 17 '13 at 10:10
10

I'm on WIndows 7 using MSysGit v1.8.4.

For me, the only solution was to add p4merge to the system path variable (reboot needed afterwards). Having done this, i conf'd it like this:

git config --global diff.tool p4merge
git config --global difftool.p4merge.cmd 'p4merge.exe $LOCAL $REMOTE'
git config --global difftool.prompt false

git config --global merge.tool p4merge
git config --global mergetool.p4merge.cmd 'p4merge.exe $BASE $LOCAL $REMOTE $MERGED'
git config --global mergetool.prompt false
git config --global mergetool.trustExitCode false
git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false

I recommend you stick to "git config" instead of editing the conf manually because hyphens etc sometimes are different between these methods.

Someguy
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3

I personally like meld better from other open source tools for just diff,

Expanding @wengeezhang answer, here is the step to configure Meld as difftool.

  1. Add Meld.exe path("C:\Program Files (x86)\Meld") to environment path
  2. Fire up windows command prompt
  3. git config --global diff.tool meld
  4. git config --global difftool.meld.cmd "meld \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\""

Bonus tip: Go to Git repo's root directory and fire up following command to see all diff side by side

git difftool --dir-diff ./
Sunil Shahu
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2

Dan Limerick has an excellent short tutorial on setting up Perforce's p4merge on Windows:

http://danlimerick.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/git-for-window-tip-use-p4merge-as-mergetool/

Tested with Git 1.9.4 and p4merge 2014.1 on Windows 7.

james.garriss
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1
  1. git config --global diff.tool p4merge
  2. git config --global difftool.p4merge.cmd "p4merge \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\""
  3. add p4merge.exe path("C:\Program Files\Perforce\p4merge.exe") to environment path

ps:

  • in step 2,you've to add \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\"(local diff remote),or p4merge won't know what to diff
wengeezhang
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