# Ignoring whitespace for diff and rebase

1 messages from 2008-08-15 to 2008-08-15. Participants: Lars Noschinski.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/15029

## Lars Noschinski, 2008-08-15 18:59

Subject: Ignoring whitespace for diff and rebase
Message-ID: <20080815185920.GA3646@lars.home.noschinski.de>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20080815185920.GA3646%40lars.home.noschinski.de

```
Hello!

Sometimes, I use

     git diff -b > ~/tmp/patch
     git reset --hard HEAD
     git apply ~/tmp/patch

to clean up all only-whitespace changes. But if there are files which
only differ on whitespace, git-diff produces an empty patch block
(what's the correct name for it?) like

     diff --git a/hello b/hello
     index f2aa86d..ce01362 100644

which git-apply refuses to apply. Is this behaviour of git-diff
intentional or should I try to cook up a patch?

Another combination which does not for for me is --interactive and
--whitespace for rebase:

     > git rebase -i --whitespace=strip HEAD^
     fatal: Needed a single revision
     Invalid base

Is this an implementation bug or lack of a note of incompatibility in
the docs?

```