phaker is correct, that's just an escape sequence that the JS terminal didn't handle (or handled incorrectly). Using --no-color you get: diff --git a/octoc

phaker is correct, that's just an escape sequence that the JS terminal didn't handle (or handled incorrectly). Using --no-color you get: diff --git a/octocat.txt b/octocat.txt index 7d8d808..e725ef6 100644 --- a/octocat.txt +++ b/octocat.txt @@ -1 +1 @@ -A Tale of Two Octocats +A Tale of Two Octocats and an Octodog