N_("exit with 1 if there were differences, 0 otherwise")),
                OPT_BOOL(0, "quiet", &options->flags.quick,
                         N_("disable all output of the program")),
+               OPT_BOOL(0, "ext-diff", &options->flags.allow_external,
+                        N_("allow an external diff helper to be executed")),
                { OPTION_CALLBACK, 0, "output", options, N_("<file>"),
                  N_("Output to a specific file"),
                  PARSE_OPT_NONEG, NULL, 0, diff_opt_output },
                if (cm & COLOR_MOVED_WS_ERROR)
                        return -1;
                options->color_moved_ws_handling = cm;
-       } else if (!strcmp(arg, "--ext-diff"))
-               options->flags.allow_external = 1;
-       else if (!strcmp(arg, "--no-ext-diff"))
-               options->flags.allow_external = 0;
-       else if (!strcmp(arg, "--textconv")) {
+       } else if (!strcmp(arg, "--textconv")) {
                options->flags.allow_textconv = 1;
                options->flags.textconv_set_via_cmdline = 1;
        } else if (!strcmp(arg, "--no-textconv"))