Ok, so I think I know what I was doing wrong... i wasn't comparing the working tree with the last commit (HEAD), although I still don't know what exactly I was comparing the working tree with. On reading the manual a little more carefully, I realised the command should have been: git diff -M --name-status HEAD This solves the problem of newly added files, but doesn't show 'R' for renamed files even after I ask git to detect renamed files - just shows that the renamed file was deleted (doesn't detect that the new renamed file was added). So I would still appreciate some input here. Renaming flie: mv randomfile.xml random.xml Diffing: git diff -M --name-status HEAD Output: D randomfile.xml Thanks, jawad -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/How-do-I-get-the-correct-modification-status-after-running-git-diff--tp27782430p27782895.html Sent from the git mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html