weird diff output?

From: Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 29, 2016, 00:26 UTC
Message-ID: <CA+P7+xoiFUiBwDU2Wo9nVukchBvJSknON2XN572b6rSHnOSWaQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Mar 28, 2016 at 4:28 PM, Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com> wrote:

Show 24 quoted lines

>  cat > expect <<EOF
> +Entering '../nested1'
> +Entering '../nested1/nested2'
> +Entering '../nested1/nested2/nested3'
> +Entering '../nested1/nested2/nested3/submodule'
> +Entering '../sub1'
> +Entering '../sub2'
> +Entering '../sub3'
> +EOF
> +
> +test_expect_failure 'test messages from "foreach --recursive" from subdirectory' '
> +       (
> +               cd clone2 &&
> +               mkdir untracked &&
> +               cd untracked &&
> +               git submodule foreach --recursive >../../actual
> +       ) &&
> +       test_i18ncmp expect actual
> +'
> +
> +cat > expect <<EOF
>  nested1-nested1
>  nested2-nested2
>  nested3-nested3

Complete tangent here. The diff above looks like

<old-line> + + + + +<old-line>

is it possible to get diff output that would look more like

+<old-line> + + + + + <old-line>

instead? This is one of those huge readability issues with diff formatting that seems like both are completely correct, but the second way is much easier in general to read what was added.

I don't understand why diff algorithms result in the former instead of the latter, and am curious if anyone knows whether this has ever been thought about or solved by someone.

I've tried using various diffing algorithms (histogram, etc) and they always produce the same result above, and never what I would prefer.

Regards, Jake