Is "git diff --word-diff" ambigious with respect to newlines?

Question

I am trying to parse git diff, and I am confident I am able to do so unambigiously with the plain command (no word-diff). I would like to include word-diff, but am having trouble understanding the rules, specifically in regards to new lines.

For example, plain diff might give me an output like this:

-using LongNameSpace.LongMessages.InternalMessages.Amazon;
-using LongNameSpace.Voice;
+using System;
+using System.Collections.Generic;
+using System.Data;
+using System.Linq;
using NameSpace.Common.Enums;

While the same piece of code with word-diff=plain is:

[-using LongNameSpace.LongMessages.InternalMessages.Amazon;-]using [-LongNameSpace.Voice;-]{+System;+}
{+using System.Collections.Generic;+}
{+using System.Data;+}
{+using System.Linq;+}
using NameSpace.Common.Enums;

My issue is with the first line of the word-diff version. Programmatically, how am I supposed to know that a newline is being removed as part of the first line at the end of the first using, and not that the first and second usings both shared the same line?

Answer 1

As noted in --word-diff doc

By default, words are delimited by whitespace; see --word-diff-regex below.

and only using special (proper) --word-diff-regex you can add support of EOL as word-delimiters.

But yes, as @torek wrote, it doesn't help you with programmatic solution, --word-diff is "only for your eyes"