Viewing the Log of Staged Changes in Git

To view the log of changes that are staged (to be committed) in Git, you can use the git diff command with the --cached option. This shows the differences between the staging area (index) and the last commit.

Command to View Staged Changes

git diff --cached

This will display the changes that are staged and ready to be committed. The output will look similar to a standard git diff, showing additions (+) and deletions (-) for each file.

Example Output

diff --git a/example.txt b/example.txt
index 1234567..89abcde 100644
--- a/example.txt
+++ b/example.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
+Header 1
+Header 2
+Header 3
 Function A() {
     // Some code
 }

Additional Options

View Staged Changes for a Specific File If you only want to see the staged changes for a specific file, you can specify the file path:
```
git diff --cached <file>
```
Example:
```
git diff --cached example.txt
```
View a Summary of Staged Changes If you want a summary of which files are staged (without the detailed diff), use:
```
git status
```
This will show a section like:
```
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage)
        modified: example.txt
```
View Staged Changes in a Compact Format Use the --stat option to see a summary of changes:
```
git diff --cached --stat
```
Example output:
```
example.txt | 3 +++
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)
```
View Staged Changes with Color If you want colored output for better readability, use:
```
git diff --cached --color
```

Notes

The --cached option is synonymous with --staged in newer versions of Git. You can use either:
```
git diff --staged
```
If no changes are staged, running git diff --cached will produce no output.

This command is useful for reviewing what will be included in your next commit before actually committing the changes.