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I sometimes have long line of code in git repo (e.g. a json config file), and git diff will generate output like below.

long line

On an EC2 instance, I git diff doesn't wrap the content to the next line, generating following output (I can use left/right keys to navigate), which I personally prefer.

short line

Does any one know how I can config the git-diff to change from one behavior to another?

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  • 2
    If you are using less as your pager, set the -S option. (I like to think of S as standing for Sideways Scroll.) The defaults in Git are complex: see stackoverflow.com/a/18781512/1256452. Note that setting S can interfere a bit with F: unix.stackexchange.com/q/231427/162084
    – torek
    Commented Oct 13, 2016 at 2:31
  • If the pager is vi or vim, then you can get same result of the less by doing git diff | vi - or git diff | vim - too.
    – Masashi
    Commented Dec 23, 2020 at 21:25

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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It's your terminal or pager program that wraps the lines, not git diff. Try redirecting the output of git diff into a file and open it with an editor that allows to control wrapping - you will see that the lines are not actually wrapped.

You can try this:

git diff|cut -c -$COLUMNS

Note however that it will disable colors and paging.

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  • Passing --color to git diff will force colors again, but then the lines are visibly cut short before actually reaching '$COLUMNS', one char for each ANSI color char in the line.
    – Jonathan Hartley
    Commented Nov 9, 2017 at 18:10
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Thank to torek's inline response above. Based on that, I realized I can do git diff | less -S to achieve what I want. It does better than the cut -c -$COLUMNS solution because it doesn't lose any context (I can still use left and right button to view all differences).

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