[git] Git diff -w ignore whitespace only at start & end of lines

This is an old question, but is still regularly viewed/needed. I want to post to caution readers like me that whitespace as mentioned in the OP's question is not the same as Regex's definition, to include newlines, tabs, and space characters -- Git asks you to be explicit. See some options here: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Customizing-Git-Git-Configuration

As stated, git diff -b or git diff --ignore-space-change will ignore spaces at line ends. If you desire that setting to be your default behavior, the following line adds that intent to your .gitconfig file, so it will always ignore the space at line ends:

git config --global core.whitespace trailing-space

In my case, I found this question because I was interested in ignoring "carriage return whitespace differences", so I needed this:

git diff --ignore-cr-at-eol or git config --global core.whitespace cr-at-eol from here.

You can also make it the default only for that repo by omitting the --global parameter, and checking in the settings file for that repo. For the CR problem I faced, it goes away after check-in if warncrlf or autocrlf = true in the [core] section of the .gitconfig file.

Examples related to git

Does the target directory for a git clone have to match the repo name? Git fatal: protocol 'https' is not supported Git is not working after macOS Update (xcrun: error: invalid active developer path (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools) git clone: Authentication failed for <URL> destination path already exists and is not an empty directory SSL_connect: SSL_ERROR_SYSCALL in connection to github.com:443 GitLab remote: HTTP Basic: Access denied and fatal Authentication How can I switch to another branch in git? VS 2017 Git Local Commit DB.lock error on every commit How to remove an unpushed outgoing commit in Visual Studio?

Examples related to diff

Create patch or diff file from git repository and apply it to another different git repository Comparing the contents of two files in Sublime Text Git diff between current branch and master but not including unmerged master commits Fast way of finding lines in one file that are not in another? Python - difference between two strings How to see the changes in a Git commit? unix diff side-to-side results? Find the files existing in one directory but not in the other git diff between two different files How to get the difference (only additions) between two files in linux

Examples related to whitespace

How to create string with multiple spaces in JavaScript git: fatal: I don't handle protocol '??http' Show whitespace characters in Visual Studio Code What is the symbol for whitespace in C? How to print variables without spaces between values Trim whitespace from a String How do I escape spaces in path for scp copy in Linux? Avoid line break between html elements Remove "whitespace" between div element How to remove all white spaces in java

Examples related to ignore

When and why do I need to use cin.ignore() in C++? Git - Ignore files during merge How to remove files that are listed in the .gitignore but still on the repository? git ignore vim temporary files Git diff -w ignore whitespace only at start & end of lines How to git ignore subfolders / subdirectories? How do I configure git to ignore some files locally? Conditionally ignoring tests in JUnit 4 Is there an ignore command for git like there is for svn? How do I make Git ignore file mode (chmod) changes?