What is the reason for the /a /b prefixes of git diff

Question

I\'ve been using git for some years now and always wondered why git diff prefixes the names of modified files with a/ and b/. I expected to eventually stumble upon a use-cas

Answer 1

It is to differentiate source and destination. You can also change it to be more meaningful:

--src-prefix=

Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".

--dst-prefix=

Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".

http://git-scm.com/docs/git-diff