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Answers to coding questions often use a minor change to the example code. But because it's code, you cant emphasize those differences with markdown syntax.

See example below where I've done some gymnastics to show a diff:

Example Question

Why isn't his working? 

<htwl>
<body>
    document
</body>
</html>

Example Answer

Ah, just a typo. You meant:

<htwl>
<html>
    <body>
        document
    </body>
</html>

In the above example answer, I used a quote block instead of code block, and <del> to strikeout the old line, and HTML character entities (including &nbsp; for indentation) to make sure the HTML didn't render as HTML. Painful.

I don't necessarily need to see a full diff, (as in git) where the old line is red and in ~strikeout~ and the new line is green. But it would be nice to give some sort of indication within a code block to emphasize or hi-light a particular change, to focus attention on that line. But of course, you cant use markdown inside of a code block!

That could really be anything: the ability to make a line bold, or a different color, or put a little arrow outside the left margin of that line. Anything to focus attention to certain lines.

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1 Answer 1

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8

Besides that just typo questions should be flagged rather than answered, you can always (almost?) use (language specific) comments to highlight your code changes:

Ah, just a typo. You meant:

<html><!-- <<<<<<<<< <htwl> is mistyped -->
    <body>
        document
    </body>
</html>

Not only that's more natural to read for programmers familiar with a specific programming or markup language, and seen out in the wild1, it's also not worth putting efforts on such a feature IMO.

1) Typical example (C++): 

i += 10; // 08/11/2017, GMA fixed typo: i =+ 10;

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  • I get what you're saying, but if the original example already has a lot of comments (which is common) then it can be hard to see the new comments.
    – brentonstrine
    Commented Aug 11, 2017 at 18:35
  • 1
    @brentonstrine "but if the original example already has a lot of comments ..." I'd rip out anything irrelevant from my answer code anyways. If you need a [MCVE] refer to some online compiler or use an external runnable snippet.
    – user0042
    Commented Aug 11, 2017 at 18:43
  • 1
    @user0042 "Not only that's more natural ..." That deserves an upvote.
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 11, 2017 at 19:48

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