From: Paul Eggert Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 23:48:14 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] Don't use $author_name undefined when $from contains no /\s In-Reply-To: <7vr6x4q9b6.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net> Junio C Hamano writes: > If "trailing space" highlighting picks up the first column blank > in "diff -u" output, that highlighting feature is *broken*. If the buffer contains arbitrary text, some of which is diff -u output and some of which is not, then it it isn't possible in general for the highlighting mode to distinguish between the diff -u part and the other part. This sort of thing is fairly common among people who email patches and code around, or who generate files containing a combination of patches and other things. If the change bothers you a lot, you might want to follow up to , which proposes the change in question to the POSIX folks. This change is atop the earlier change I proposed to specify "diff -u" format in the first place; see . You can follow up by writing to austin-group-l@opengroup.org and citing XCU ERN 103. You can find a copy of XCU ERN 103 at ; look for "Number 103". Since git uses diff -u format, it would make sense to git to work with the upcoming POSIX spec for diff -u, either by adjusting the spec or by adjusting git.