Details of the Diff Output - ParkinT/mastering_git GitHub Wiki

Interpreting the output from the 'diff' command is simple once you understand the format.

Short form - XY PATH1 -> PATH2 For paths with merge conflicts, X and 'Y' show the modification states of each side of the merge.

For paths that do not have merge conflicts, X shows the status of the index, and Y shows the status of the work tree. For untracked paths, XY are ??.

Other status codes can be interpreted as follows: ' ' = unmodified