Can you get a word-diff with `git log`?

Question

I know that git diff --word-diff=color shows a word diff between the working tree and HEAD, but is there a way to get the same kind of output with git log?

Legionary

what version of git are you using? In version 1.5.5.6, git diff --color-words rev1..rev2 only gives expected colored output. If I try git diff --word-diff=color rev1..rev2 it shows the git-diff usage. – Hushhush

You might have to write up a little script -- Do git log in such a way that it just prints the SHA1s, then iterate through those SHA1s and do git diff --word-diff=color $SHA1^ $SHA1. Then of course you could assign a git alias to that. – Od

Answer 1

What about --color-words? Additionally you somehow have to activate the diff.

git log --color-words -p

shows me kind of a colored diff.

Avery

That outputs line diff, not a word diff – Legionary

On 1.7.1 and with my settings (nothing diff-related, apart from maybe color.ui=auto it outputs a word diff.) Of course only when your source contains word differences (= differences smaller than whole added/removed lines). – Howells

Answer 2

OK I think I got it working with

git log -m -p --word-diff=plain

Legionary

This gives me a error: fatal: unrecognized argument: --word-diff=plain. What is your git version (git --version)? – Howells

git version 1.7.3.2. But on my linux box, which currently has 1.7.0.4, I get the same error. – Legionary

So looks like they added the support to --word-diff to git log between these versions (which makes sense, since the option was already possible for git diff). – Howells

Nice. Now if only git would use that for actual patches, indenting a block of code might not result in merge conflicts! – Irony