Make git diff show UTF8 encoded characters properly

Question

I have a file with Swedish characters in it (åäö) encoded with UTF8.

If I cat the file it displays fine, but if I do git diff the special c

Answer 1

git is dumping out raw bytes. In this case, it doesn't care what your file's encoding is. The highlighted you're seeing is coming from less, which is presumably configured as your PAGER. Try setting:

LESSCHARSET=UTF-8