Git tool to remove lines from staging if they consist only of changes in whitespace

Question

The point in removing trailing whitespace is that if everyone does it always then you end up with a diff that is minimal, ie. it consists only of code changes and not whitespace

Answer 1

My solution on git 1.7.2.5 was as follows (starting without any changes staged):

git diff -w > temp.patch
git stash
git apply --ignore-space-change --ignore-whitespace temp.patch
# tidy up:
rm temp.patch
git stash drop

This leaves your repo back in the starting state with any whitespace only changes removed.

You can then stage your changes as usual.