Re: Feature Request: Add diff.word-diff <mode> and perhaps diff.word-diff-regex <regex> configuration options to enable always using word-diffs in git diff

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 15, 2018, 21:13 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqbmek18bz.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <87604tft6p.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

Show 9 quoted lines

> On Sat, Apr 14 2018, Doron Behar wrote:
>
>> I've just came across the wonderful command line option for `git diff`:
>> `--word-diff`. It could be great to have a configuration option that
>> will enable this feature by default when running `git diff`.
>
> Do you know you can do:
>
>     git config --global alias.wdiff "diff --word-diff"

Correct, but it is a "you could instead do it this way" that is not accompanied by a "you do not want to do what you said you want to because.." answer. Having the latter is often helpful to learn why the suggestion is actually not a mere "you could" but is a "you are better off doing it this way".

Even though it is discouraged, people script using the Porcelain "git diff" command, and once users of such a configuration variable is used in Doron's fork of Git, those scripts will break for them.

Using alias like you showed won't have such a problem.