see https://github.com/timotheecour/Nim/pull/37 for a self-contained minimal example
the actual diff contains a single large re-indented block (re-indented by 2 spaces); and a single re-indented line within that large block: ## * getTempDir proc <#getTempDir>_
none of the tools I know of helps viewing the diff in this case:
* problem 1: https://github.com/timotheecour/Nim/pull/37/files?w=1 completely ignores the re-indented single line within the block * problem 2: https://github.com/timotheecour/Nim/pull/37/files shows a large complex diff composed of multiple diff blocks, hard to spot whether code was changed or whether it's just re-indent * git diff --color-moved-ws=allow-indentation-change --color-moved=blocks HEAD^ this suffers from problem 1 and problem 2: the diff is complex and shows multiple blocks * git diff --color-moved-ws=allow-indentation-change --color-moved HEAD^ does not suffer from problem 1 but suffers from problem 2: the diff is complex and shows multiple blocks; see comment below
* even without reasoning about moved code (eg `--color-moved`), there is no `git diff` option I know of that correctly identifies blocks of text that were merely re-indented UNIFORMLY.
I've show the `git diff` output in that PR. It makes it really hard to review diffs that are composed of essentially re-indentation; and to identify deviations from uniform re-indentation within re-indented blocks. Uniform re-indentation is important for correctness in whitespace sensitive languages such as python, nim, where a spurious re-indentation could introduce a subtle behavior change; this should be visible, not ignored.
## expected git diff output perhaps an option `--color-moved-ws=smart-indentation-change` should be introduced which would group code by uniform re-indentation level, and would show how much each block was re-indented by (positive or negative). In example from that PR, it should show a large re-indented block in 1 color, and show in another color the re-indented single line
(ref: D20200223T154500)