Using ‘diff’ (or anything else) to get character-level diff between text files

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Git has a word diff, and defining all characters as words effectively gives you a character diff. However, newline changes are ignored.

Example

Create a repository like this:

mkdir chardifftest
cd chardifftest
git init
echo -e 'foobarbaz\ncatdog\nfox' > file
git add -A; git commit -m 1
echo -e 'fuobArbas\ncat\ndogfox' > file
git add -A; git commit -m 2

Now, do git diff --word-diff=color --word-diff-regex=. master^ master and you’ll get:

git diff

Note how both additions and deletions are recognized at the character level, while both additions and deletions of newlines are ignored.

You may also want to try one of these:

git diff --word-diff=plain --word-diff-regex=. master^ master
git diff --word-diff=porcelain --word-diff-regex=. master^ master

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