How to diff one file to an arbitrary version in Git?

Question

How can I diff a file, say pom.xml, from the master branch to an arbitrary older version in Git?

Answer 1

Generic Syntax :

$git diff oldCommit..newCommit -- **FileName.xml > ~/diff.txt

for all files named "FileName.xml" anywhere in your repo.

Notice the space between "--" and "**"

Answer for your question:

$git checkout master
$git diff oldCommit..HEAD -- **pom.xml 
or
$git diff oldCommit..HEAD -- relative/path/to/pom.xml 

as always with git, you can use a tag/sha1/"HEAD^" to id a commit.

Tested with git 1.9.1 on Ubuntu.