---
title: "Compare two commits"
method: GET
path: "/repositories/{workspace}/{repo_slug}/diff/{spec}"
tags: ["Commits"]
---

# Compare two commits

`GET /repositories/{workspace}/{repo_slug}/diff/{spec}`

Produces a raw git-style diff.

#### Single commit spec

If the `spec` argument to this API is a single commit, the diff is
produced against the first parent of the specified commit.

#### Two commit spec

Two commits separated by `..` may be provided as the `spec`, e.g.,
`3a8b42..9ff173`. When two commits are provided and the `topic` query
parameter is true, this API produces a 2-way three dot diff.
This is the diff between source commit and the merge base of the source
commit and the destination commit. When the `topic` query param is false,
a simple git-style diff is produced.

The two commits are interpreted as follows:

* First commit: the commit containing the changes we wish to preview
* Second commit: the commit representing the state to which we want to
  compare the first commit
* **Note**: This is the opposite of the order used in `git diff`.

#### Comparison to patches

While similar to patches, diffs:

* Don't have a commit header (username, commit message, etc)
* Support the optional `path=foo/bar.py` query param to filter
  the diff to just that one file diff

#### Response

The raw diff is returned as-is, in whatever encoding the files in the
repository use. It is not decoded into unicode. As such, the
content-type is `text/plain`.

## Query parameters

- `context` integer
- `path` string
- `ignore_whitespace` boolean
- `binary` boolean
- `renames` boolean
- `merge` boolean
- `topic` boolean

## Response `200`

The raw diff

## Other responses

- `555` — If the diff was too large and timed out. Since this endpoint does not employ any form of pagination, but instead returns the diff as a single document, it can run into trouble on very large diffs. If Bitbucket times out in cases like these, a 555 status code is returned.

---

[API](https://skmtc.net/bitbucket/apis/bitbucket-api.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.net/bitbucket/apis/bitbucket-api/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc-service-staging.skmtc.workers.dev/v1/apis/bitbucket/bitbucket-api/versions/4ec8bd2515c5/schema)