datalad.api.diff

datalad.api.diff(path=None, *, fr='HEAD', to=None, dataset=None, annex=None, untracked='normal', recursive=False, recursion_limit=None)

Report differences between two states of a dataset (hierarchy)

The two to-be-compared states are given via the –from and –to options. These state identifiers are evaluated in the context of the (specified or detected) dataset. In the case of a recursive report on a dataset hierarchy, corresponding state pairs for any subdataset are determined from the subdataset record in the respective superdataset. Only changes recorded in a subdataset between these two states are reported, and so on.

Any paths given as additional arguments will be used to constrain the difference report. As with Git’s diff, it will not result in an error when a path is specified that does not exist on the filesystem.

Reports are very similar to those of the status command, with the distinguished content types and states being identical.

Examples

Show unsaved changes in a dataset:

> diff()

Compare a previous dataset state identified by shasum against current worktree:

> diff(fr='SHASUM')

Compare two branches against each other:

> diff(fr='branch1', to='branch2')

Show unsaved changes in the dataset and potential subdatasets:

> diff(recursive=True)

Show unsaved changes made to a particular file:

> diff(path='path/to/file')
Parameters:

  • path (sequence of str or None, optional) – path to constrain the report to. [Default: None]

  • fr (str, optional) – original state to compare to, as given by any identifier that Git understands. [Default: ‘HEAD’]

  • to (str or None, optional) – state to compare against the original state, as given by any identifier that Git understands. If none is specified, the state of the working tree will be compared. [Default: None]

  • dataset (Dataset or None, optional) – specify the dataset to query. If no dataset is given, an attempt is made to identify the dataset based on the current working directory. [Default: None]

  • annex ({None, 'basic', 'availability', 'all'}, optional) – Switch whether to include information on the annex content of individual files in the status report, such as recorded file size. By default no annex information is reported (faster). Three report modes are available: basic information like file size and key name (‘basic’); additionally test whether file content is present in the local annex (‘availability’; requires one or two additional file system stat calls, but does not call git-annex), this will add the result properties ‘has_content’ (boolean flag) and ‘objloc’ (absolute path to an existing annex object file); or ‘all’ which will report all available information (presently identical to ‘availability’). [Default: None]

  • untracked ({'no', 'normal', 'all'}, optional) – If and how untracked content is reported when comparing a revision to the state of the working tree. ‘no’: no untracked content is reported; ‘normal’: untracked files and entire untracked directories are reported as such; ‘all’: report individual files even in fully untracked directories. [Default: ‘normal’]

  • recursive (bool, optional) – if set, recurse into potential subdatasets. [Default: False]

  • recursion_limit (int or None, optional) – limit recursion into subdatasets to the given number of levels. [Default: None]

  • on_failure ({'ignore', 'continue', 'stop'}, optional) – behavior to perform on failure: ‘ignore’ any failure is reported, but does not cause an exception; ‘continue’ if any failure occurs an exception will be raised at the end, but processing other actions will continue for as long as possible; ‘stop’: processing will stop on first failure and an exception is raised. A failure is any result with status ‘impossible’ or ‘error’. Raised exception is an IncompleteResultsError that carries the result dictionaries of the failures in its failed attribute. [Default: ‘continue’]

  • result_filter (callable or None, optional) – if given, each to-be-returned status dictionary is passed to this callable, and is only returned if the callable’s return value does not evaluate to False or a ValueError exception is raised. If the given callable supports **kwargs it will additionally be passed the keyword arguments of the original API call. [Default: None]

  • result_renderer – select rendering mode command results. ‘tailored’ enables a command- specific rendering style that is typically tailored to human consumption, if there is one for a specific command, or otherwise falls back on the the ‘generic’ result renderer; ‘generic’ renders each result in one line with key info like action, status, path, and an optional message); ‘json’ a complete JSON line serialization of the full result record; ‘json_pp’ like ‘json’, but pretty-printed spanning multiple lines; ‘disabled’ turns off result rendering entirely; ‘<template>’ reports any value(s) of any result properties in any format indicated by the template (e.g. ‘{path}’, compare with JSON output for all key-value choices). The template syntax follows the Python “format() language”. It is possible to report individual dictionary values, e.g. ‘{metadata[name]}’. If a 2nd-level key contains a colon, e.g. ‘music:Genre’, ‘:’ must be substituted by ‘#’ in the template, like so: ‘{metadata[music#Genre]}’. [Default: ‘tailored’]

  • result_xfm ({'datasets', 'successdatasets-or-none', 'paths', 'relpaths', 'metadata'} or callable or None, optional) – if given, each to-be-returned result status dictionary is passed to this callable, and its return value becomes the result instead. This is different from result_filter, as it can perform arbitrary transformation of the result value. This is mostly useful for top- level command invocations that need to provide the results in a particular format. Instead of a callable, a label for a pre-crafted result transformation can be given. [Default: None]

  • return_type ({'generator', 'list', 'item-or-list'}, optional) – return value behavior switch. If ‘item-or-list’ a single value is returned instead of a one-item return value list, or a list in case of multiple return values. None is return in case of an empty list. [Default: ‘list’]