Git and DiffTool problems : What do LOCAL and REMOTE point to?

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5440610

  •  12-11-2019
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Question

Ive been working on getting tortoisemerge working as the difftool option in Git with my .gitconfig file currently showing :

   [diff]
        tool = tortoise

    [difftool "tortoise"]
        cmd = tortoisemerge.exe -mine:$LOCAL -base:$REMOTE

    [difftool]
        prompt = false

According to tortoise merge docs the 'mine' command states which file will be shown on the right, in a two way diff.

My question is, what do the LOCAL and REMOTE variables as provided by GIT actually point to? The documentation is a little vague stating that

LOCAL is set to the name of the temporary file containing the contents of the diff pre-image and REMOTE is set to the name of the temporary file containing the contents of the diff post-image.

The problem arises when I modify a file, and then enter 'git difftool' tortoisemerge is started with the working directory file on the LEFT and not the right as I assume. I know I can merely switch the 'mine' and 'local' commands but I was trying to figure out what the local/remote points to and the best way to resolve this issue

Was it helpful?

Solution

I think that means that $LOCAL is always the a/whatever in the diff output, while $REMOTE is the b/whatever. In other words, if you do:

 git difftool master experiment -- Makefile

$LOCAL will be a temporary file showing the the state of Makefile in the master branch, while $REMOTE will be a temporary file showing its state in the experiment branch.

If you just run:

git difftool

... that shows you the difference between the index and your working tree, so for each file with differences, $LOCAL will be a temporary file that's the same as the version of the file in the index, while the $REMOTE will be the version of the file in your working tree.

OTHER TIPS

there are 4 components to this (note that before this step, you would have already done a local-checkin.)

  • The local-checkin that your git tree has: LOCAL
  • The head of the remote repository (that is going to be merged): REMOTE
  • common ancestor to both LOCAL and REMOTE: BASE
  • The file that will be written as a result: MERGED.

I am using TortoiseSvn for merge and diff and is working as expected. While in diff, it shows my working copy on the right. My .gitconfig with TortoiseSvn is as follows

[diff]
    tool = tortoise


[merge]
    tool = tortoise


[mergetool "tortoise"]
    cmd = TortoiseMerge.exe -base:\"$BASE\" -mine:\"$LOCAL\" -theirs:\"$REMOTE\" -merged:\"$MERGED\"
[difftool "tortoise"]
    cmd = tortoisemerge.exe -mine:\"$REMOTE\" -base:\"$LOCAL\"
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