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

If neither commit is your HEAD then bash's brace expansion proves really useful, especially if your filenames are long, the example above:

git diff master~20:pom.xml master:pom.xml

Would become

git diff {master~20,master}:pom.xml

More on Brace expansion with bash.