Make newly added files show up in git diff output

Sometimes it's handy to be able to show a normal diff for all the changes in a patch. The default behaviour is to hide the diffs of new files, i.e. in this case the output of "git diff" is missing the contents of newfile:

$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /gittemp/.git/
$ echo "blah" > newfile
$ git add newfile 
$ git diff
$ git status
# On branch master
#
# Initial commit
#
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git rm --cached ..." to unstage)
#
# new file:   newfile
#

If you'd like to see the complete content of the new file in the diff output use the "-N" option to git add:

$ echo "blahmore" > newfile2
$ git add -N newfile2
$ git diff
diff --git a/newfile2 b/newfile2
index e69de29..39b5650 100644
--- a/newfile2
+++ b/newfile2
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+blahmore