ask github or sourcetree to ignore moved lines?

Question

I'm using Git to keep track of the changes I make to my project. I often move entire sections around within my files.

When I view diffs using Sourcetree and GitHub for OSX, it shows me those moved lines as deleted (and shows them as new lines elsewhere). This is confusing visually.

How do I instruct Sourcetree or GitHub to ignore moved lines, and only show lines as deleted if they are truly gone?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 03 '13 at 08:00

3

Short answer, you can't.

If you don't like default diffs calculated by git, you can try to use --patience (Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.) and --histogram (Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.) options of git diff.

Also this might help Customizing-Git-Git-Attributes#Binary-Files see Diffing Binary Files.

answered Jul 03 '13 at 08:00

Tala

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Thanks. Can I use --patience in conjunction with Sourcetree or Github for OSX? – incandescentman Jul 03 '13 at 10:12
1

If patience is your choice then you could set it as config `git config --global diff.algorithm patience` – Tala Jul 03 '13 at 10:23

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 29 '14 at 18:31

An alternative is to use the command line. You can instruct git to try and guess when lines of code have been moved

git blame -M -w <file>

should show you the author and sha1's of what it thinks are the original authors of those lines. It's an educated guess, so it might be wrong sometimes.

ask github or sourcetree to ignore moved lines?

2 Answers2