Re: Wrong tabs in terminal output for git diff

On Fri, Jun 11, 2021 at 12:30 PM Timothy Madden [off-list ref] wrote:

For git diff and git show commands, terminal output appears with wrong
tab stops (missaligned).

Because diff operation inserts a new column at character position 1, for
the +, - and space characters, the diff content appears shifted to the
right by 1 column. But not the tab stop positions. So relative to the
text, the tab stops now appear off-by-one (shifted to the left).

I think "fixing" this would require modifying the diff output so it
would no longer be correct. If we accept that a switch can make a
incorrect diff for display only, though, it seems something could be
done here.

I think the only approach that can fix the alignment, however, is to
remove the +/- prefix markers altogether.  We do this now with the
`--color-words` switch. This kind of solution only works if there is
some way to indicate added/removed lines other than the line-prefix
marker; ANSI color codes, for example.  Would that work for your
needs, or were you thinking of something else?