# diff-so-fancy — Good-Looking Diffs for git and plain text

> diff-so-fancy strips filenames, strips leading `+/-`, highlights word-level changes, and turns ugly unified diffs into clean, GitHub-style readable output — a drop-in replacement for git's default diff.

## Install

Save in your project root:

# diff-so-fancy — Good-Looking Diffs for git and plain text

## Quick Use
```bash
brew install diff-so-fancy
# Configure git once
git config --global core.pager "diff-so-fancy | less --tabs=4 -RFX"
git config --global interactive.diffFilter "diff-so-fancy --patch"
git config --global color.ui true
git config --global color.diff.meta "11"
git config --global color.diff.frag "magenta bold"
git config --global color.diff.func "146 bold"
git config --global color.diff.commit "yellow bold"
git config --global color.diff.old "red bold"
git config --global color.diff.new "green bold"
git config --global color.diff.whitespace "red reverse"
# Now every `git diff` is pretty
```

## Introduction
`diff-so-fancy` post-processes git's diff output to collapse filename headers, colorize hunk ranges, highlight intra-line word changes, and trim the leading `+`/`-` columns. It's written in Perl (now with a pre-built Node distribution) and reads from stdin, so it composes with any git or plain diff pipeline.

## What diff-so-fancy Does
- Rewrites git-style unified diffs into a condensed, readable layout.
- Highlights word-level changes in a line.
- Strips the leading plus/minus gutter so code selects cleanly.
- Integrates as git's `core.pager` or `interactive.diffFilter`.
- Works with any tool that emits unified diff (svn, diff -u).

## Architecture Overview
diff-so-fancy is a filter: it reads diff stdin, runs a line-by-line state machine distinguishing meta/hunk/added/removed/unchanged lines, applies ANSI color codes, and writes to stdout. Word highlighting uses `git diff-highlight` internally (bundled).

## Self-Hosting & Configuration
- Install via brew, apt, pacman, or `npm install -g diff-so-fancy`.
- Configure via `git config` — see Quick Use above.
- `--patch` mode strips color for pager-pickers like fzf.
- Pair with `less -RFX` to keep colors and quit on short diffs.

## Key Features
- Drastically cleaner reviews — filename only at top of section.
- Word-level diff highlight.
- Zero config beyond `git config`.
- Works with GitHub CLI (`gh pr diff | diff-so-fancy`).
- Fast — Perl/Node pipe, negligible overhead.

## Comparison with Similar Tools
- **delta (dandavison)** — Rust, more features (syntax-highlight, side-by-side).
- **git diff-highlight** — built-in; word highlights but less polished.
- **icdiff** — side-by-side Python tool.
- **git --word-diff** — built-in word diff; less pretty.
- **meld/kdiff3** — GUI tools for three-way merges.

## FAQ
**Q: Which is "better", delta or diff-so-fancy?**
A: delta is more featureful; diff-so-fancy is lighter and works everywhere Perl/Node does.

**Q: Does it support side-by-side?**
A: No — stick with delta or icdiff for that.

**Q: Broken with `less`?**
A: Use `less --tabs=4 -RFX` as shown.

**Q: Can I disable word highlighting?**
A: `diff-so-fancy --colors="keepEmptyLines,stripLeadingSymbols"`.

## Sources
- https://github.com/so-fancy/diff-so-fancy

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Source: https://tokrepo.com/en/workflows/43fc75b0-38c4-11f1-9bc6-00163e2b0d79
Author: AI Open Source