How to exclude .git when diffing two directories?

[limaceous-bushwhacker]

Title.

[dandavison]

Hi @limaceous-bushwhacker, can you give an example of the command that you have been using to diff directories?

[limaceous-bushwhacker]

I just used delta dir1 dir2.

[dandavison]

Hm, interesting question. So firstly, let me say that delta dir1 dir2 is just a shortcut for git diff --no-index dir1 dir2 | delta. I haven't added CLI options to control it -- my thinking is that when we need control, we should use the explicit form. (Note that this git diff command can be applied to any files or directories; they don't have to be in the same git repo).

However, I do not see a way to exclude certain paths when using git diff on two directories? Do you?

But I think what we can do is use traditional diff -r, being sure to pass -u for unified diff format:

diff -ru --exclude=.git dir1 dir2 | delta

How's that?