How to see code changes after git pull?

Question

I would like to inspect any code changes after doing a git pull. Currently it\'s just showing me which files changes. How can I see what code changed?

Answer 1

Before pulling

You can review changes as @iblue says with a fetch and diff before merging:

$ git fetch
$ git diff master...origin/master

Note the triple period, which means diff against the shared parent and origin/master (commits marked x below):

SP---o---o [master]
  \
   x---x [origin/master]

Just after a pull

The very first line in the output of a pull looks like this:

$ git pull
Updating 37b431a..b2615b4
...

You can then simply do:

$ git diff 37b431a..b2615b4

Or whatever other command:

$ git log --name-status 37b431a..b2615b4

Later on

If it has been a while since you pulled, and you wish to know what changes were brought in by the last pull, you can look it up with:

$ git reflog | grep -A1 pull | head -2

which will show the hash after the pull followed by the hash before the pull:

b2615b4 HEAD@{0}: pull : Fast-forward
37b431a HEAD@{1}: checkout: moving from v6.1 to master

You can then do the same thing with these two hashes:

git diff 37b431a..b2615b4