Subject: Re: [PATCH] diff: add --no-indicators option

From: Collin Funk <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2025 00:57:08 -0800

"Harald Nordgren via GitGitGadget" <[email-masked]> writes:

> From: Harald Nordgren <[email-masked]>
>
> Add --no-indicators to replace '+', '-', and ' ' indicators in the
> left margin with spaces. Colors are preserved, allowing diffs to be
> distinguished by color alone.
>
> This is useful when copy-pasting diff output, as the indicators no
> longer need to be manually removed.
>
> Signed-off-by: Harald Nordgren <[email-masked]>
> ---
>     diff: add '--no-indicators' option
>
> Published-As: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/releases/tag/pr-git-2133%2FHaraldNordgren%2Fno-indicators-v1
> Fetch-It-Via: git fetch https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git pr-git-2133/HaraldNordgren/no-indicators-v1
> Pull-Request: https://github.com/git/git/pull/2133
>
>  diff.c                 | 17 +++++++++++++++++
>  t/t4000-diff-format.sh | 32 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  2 files changed, 49 insertions(+)

Would a 'sed' command work for this? Something like:

    $ git diff --color=always HEAD~ \
        | sed -E '/^(\x1b\[[0-9;]*m)*(-{3} a|\+{3} b)/b
                  s/^((\x1b\[[0-9;]*m)*)[-+]/\1 /'

My impression is that indicators are wanted for diff's most (all?) of
the time.

Collin