This question was rejected at in the Software Engineering StackExchange, I was pointed here.
I use git entirely in the command-line and I look for ways to speed up my workflow.
Many times a day, I check my code with git status, followed by several git diff /path/to/specific_file. I have to type a lot in the second command, and there has to be a better way.
Are there solutions out there where you can immediately check e.g. the 2nd changed file of git status or similar?
Use this one-liner, which you can alias to some shorter command if needed:
git status | grep -Po -m2 '^\s+modified:\s+\K.*' | tail -n1 | xargs git diff
Here, GNU grep uses the following options:
-P : Use Perl regexes.
-o : Print the matches only (1 match per line), not the entire lines.
-m2 : Print a maximum of 2 matches.
^\s+modified:\s+ : matches the beginning of the lines, followed by 1 or more whitespaces, then literal modified:, then 1 or more whitespaces.
\K : Cause the regex engine to "keep" everything it had matched prior to the \K and not include it in the match. Specifically, ignore the preceding part of the regex when printing the match.
.* : 0 or more occurrences of any character.
To alias this one-liner, for example, to gd2, type in your shell or add to your ~/.bashrc:
alias gd2="git status | grep -Po -m2 '^\s+modified:\s+\K.*' | tail -n1 | xargs git diff"
See also: