Subject: [PATCH v2 2/4] diff: reject negative values for -U/--unified

From: "Michael Montalbo via GitGitGadget" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 May 2026 18:10:21 +0000

From: Michael Montalbo <[email-masked]>

Passing a negative value to -U is silently accepted and produces
corrupt unified diff output with malformed hunk headers:

    $ git log -1 -p -U-500 -- GIT-VERSION-GEN | grep '^@@'
    @@ -503,999- +503,999- @@

Line 503 of a 106-line file, count "999-" is not a valid integer.

The config variable diff.context already rejects negative values, but
the command line callback diff_opt_unified() uses strtol() with no
range check.

Change the type of diff_options.context and its static default from
int to unsigned int, matching the change to interhunkcontext in the
previous commit. The type change requires reworking the callback and
config parsing to validate in a local variable before assigning to
the now-unsigned field.

Unlike --inter-hunk-context which could be converted to OPT_UNSIGNED,
-U needs OPT_CALLBACK_F for PARSE_OPT_OPTARG (bare -U with no value
enables patch output). Add a range check in the callback instead.

Signed-off-by: Michael Montalbo <[email-masked]>
---
 diff.c                  | 12 ++++++++----
 diff.h                  |  2 +-
 t/t4055-diff-context.sh |  5 +++++
 3 files changed, 14 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/diff.c b/diff.c
index 5df28e49c5..1771b2c444 100644
--- a/diff.c
+++ b/diff.c
@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ static int diff_suppress_blank_empty;
 static enum git_colorbool diff_use_color_default = GIT_COLOR_UNKNOWN;
 static int diff_color_moved_default;
 static int diff_color_moved_ws_default;
-static int diff_context_default = 3;
+static unsigned int diff_context_default = 3;
 static unsigned int diff_interhunk_context_default;
 static char *diff_word_regex_cfg;
 static struct external_diff external_diff_cfg;
@@ -382,9 +382,10 @@ int git_diff_ui_config(const char *var, const char *value,
 		return 0;
 	}
 	if (!strcmp(var, "diff.context")) {
-		diff_context_default = git_config_int(var, value, ctx->kvi);
-		if (diff_context_default < 0)
+		int val = git_config_int(var, value, ctx->kvi);
+		if (val < 0)
 			return -1;
+		diff_context_default = val;
 		return 0;
 	}
 	if (!strcmp(var, "diff.interhunkcontext")) {
@@ -5924,9 +5925,12 @@ static int diff_opt_unified(const struct option *opt,
 	BUG_ON_OPT_NEG(unset);
 
 	if (arg) {
-		options->context = strtol(arg, &s, 10);
+		long val = strtol(arg, &s, 10);
 		if (*s)
 			return error(_("%s expects a numerical value"), "--unified");
+		if (val < 0)
+			return error(_("%s expects a non-negative integer"), "--unified");
+		options->context = val;
 	}
 	enable_patch_output(&options->output_format);
 
diff --git a/diff.h b/diff.h
index 033d633db4..bb5cddaf34 100644
--- a/diff.h
+++ b/diff.h
@@ -294,7 +294,7 @@ struct diff_options {
 	enum git_colorbool use_color;
 
 	/* Number of context lines to generate in patch output. */
-	int context;
+	unsigned int context;
 
 	unsigned int interhunkcontext;
 
diff --git a/t/t4055-diff-context.sh b/t/t4055-diff-context.sh
index 1384a81957..b26f6eea7c 100755
--- a/t/t4055-diff-context.sh
+++ b/t/t4055-diff-context.sh
@@ -82,6 +82,11 @@ test_expect_success 'negative integer config parsing' '
 	test_grep "bad config variable" output
 '
 
+test_expect_success '-U-1 is rejected' '
+	test_must_fail git diff -U-1 2>err &&
+	test_grep "expects a non-negative integer" err
+'
+
 test_expect_success '-U0 is valid, so is diff.context=0' '
 	test_config diff.context 0 &&
 	git diff >output &&
-- 
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