Git has a few (configurable) diff algorithms; 'histogram' is more readable (IMO, but that's the design goal - or rather is of 'patience' which it extends/speeds

Git has a few (configurable) diff algorithms; 'histogram' is more readable (IMO, but that's the design goal - or rather is of 'patience' which it extends/speeds up) than the default Myers algorithm, but it does still suffer from the issue you describe IME. Paper comparing Myers and histogram: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10664-019-09772-z https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10664-019-09772-z Naïvely it seems like it should be not that hard to fix (be less greedy?) or even that it's an example of a case where the algorithm should be less smart: it's such a common case, hardcode paren chars for some kind of exception or second pass. But that is a naïve take, I've never looked at the algorithm or source code at all.