Re: [BUG] "git diff --word-diff" gives a diff while they are only space changes

From: Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net>
Date: May 8, 2026, 21:39 UTC
Message-ID: <20260508213943.GP5260@qaa.vinc17.org>
In-Reply-To: <7cedf86c-5db7-45ef-b8d4-034b792f0def@kdbg.org>

On 2026-05-08 14:48:01 +0200, Johannes Sixt wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> This is expected behavior.
> 
> git diff --word-diff is not agnostic to whitespace; if you drop
> --word-diff, you see the line-diff that the word-diff is based on. If
> you want whitespace-agnostic word-diff, you have to add -w.

This is not how it is documented. Even when using "git diff" without --word-diff, but with GNU wdiff instead, the output is fine:

$ git diff file1 file2 | wdiff -d

diff --git a/file1 b/file2
index da04344..0074613 100644
[--- a/file1-]
{+++ b/file2+}
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
1
 2
 3
 2
 4

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Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
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