are ignored, so they can be used as separators for
   readability.

 - Lines starting with a hash ("`#`") are ignored, so they can be used
   for comments.  Add a backslash ("`\`") to the beginning of the
   pattern if it starts with a hash.

 - Each other line contains a single pattern.
--
+
Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
`fnmatch`(3) without the `FNM_PATHNAME` flag, except a pathname also
matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
components matches the pattern.  For example, the pattern "`foo*bar`"
matches "`fooasdfbar`" and "`foo/bar/baz/asdf`" but not "`foobarx`".

`--skip-to=<file>`::
`--rotate-to=<file>`::
	Discard the files before the named _<file>_ from the output
	(i.e. 'skip to'), or move them to the end of the output
	(i.e. 'rotate to').  These options were invented primarily for the use
	of the `git difftool` command, and may not be very useful
	otherwise.

ifndef::git-format-patch[]
`-R`::
	Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or
	on-disk file to tree contents.
endif::git-format-patch[]

`--relative[=<path>]`::
`--no-relative`::
	When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be
	told to exclude changes outside the directory and show
	pathnames relative to it with this option.  When you are
	not in a subdirectory (e.g. in a bare repository), you
	can name which subdirectory to make the output relative
	to by giving a _<path>_ as an argument.
	`--no-relative` can be used to countermand both `diff.relative` config
	option and previous `--relative`.

`-a`::
`--text`::
	Treat all files as text.

`--ignore-cr-at-eol`::
	Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.

`--ignore-space-at-eol`::
	Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.

`-b`::
`--ignore-space-change`::
	Ignore changes in amount of whitespace.  This ignores whitespace
	at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or
	more whitespace characters to be equivalent.

`-w`::
`--ignore-all-space`::
	Ignore whitespace when comparing lines.  This ignores
	differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
	line has none.

`--ignore-blank-lines`::
	Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.


`-I<regex>`::
`--ignore-matching-lines=<regex>`::
	Ignore changes whose all lines match _<regex>_.  This option may
	be specified more than once.

`--inter-hunk-context=<number>`::
	Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified _<number>_
	of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other.
	Defaults to `diff.interHunkContext` or 0 if the config option
	is unset.

`-W`::
`--function-context`::
	Show whole function as context lines for each change.
	The function names are determined in the same way as
	`git diff` works out patch hunk headers (see "Defining a
	custom hunk-header" in linkgit:gitattributes[5]).

ifndef::git-format-patch[]
ifndef::git-log[]
`--exit-code`::
	Make the program exit with codes similar to `diff`(1).
	That is, it exits with 1 if there