Re: [RFD] Strange patch formats (aka tricks with unified diffs)..

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Apr 14, 2007, 10:09 UTC
Message-ID: <20070414100923.GA6546@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <7vbqhrb7r2.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>

On Sat, Apr 14, 2007 at 02:55:13AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> One sensible behaviour would be to show exactly the same output
> lines as the regular output, but color-code only the words that
> changed.  E.g (the words are capitalized to illustrate instead
> of colored here):

That works great for highlighting a small change between two very similar lines (and I think that is one use of --color-words). However, it's terrible for the other use of color words, which is showing changes which are not well-adapted to line oriented diffs (such as flowed text).

Try this:

cat >orig <<EOF this is a paragraph that has some text in it and is wrapped at 30 characters EOF

cat >rewrapped <<EOF this is yet another paragraph that has some text in it and is wrapped at 30 characters EOF

git-diff --color orig rewrapped git-diff --color-words orig rewrapped

I think one behavior is best for one situation, and the other behavior for another situation. Perhaps there is room for two modes?

-Peff