git/list[1] front-page[2] threads[3] people[4] search[5] about
 

[RFC PATCH 4/4] color.ui config: add "isatty" setting

From
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
Date
May 30, 2018, 21:06 UTC
Message-ID
<20180530210641.19771-5-avarab@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<20180530210641.19771-1-avarab@gmail.com>

A co-worker of mine who was using UNIX systems when dinosaurs roamed the earth was lamenting that kids these days were using tools like "git" that thought they knew better than isatty(3) when deciding whether or not something was a terminal, and the state of the documentation fixed earlier in this series certainly didn't help.

So this setting is a small gift to all the UNIX graybeards out there. Now they can set color.ui=isatty and only emit fancy colors in situations when the gods of old intended, not whatever heuristic we've decided to set "auto" to.

As noted here this is *currently* the same as setting color.ui=auto & color.pager=false, but I think it's good to explicitly have this setting for any future changes. The reason, as now noted in the documentation is that the "auto" setting may become even smarter in the future and learn even deeper heuristics for when to turn itself on even if isatty(3) were returning true.

At that point the fans of plain isatty(3) will become even more upset at what we're doing, so let's give them a simple future-proof opt-out.

Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
---
 Documentation/config.txt | 10 ++++++++++
 color.c                  | 12 ++++++++----
 color.h                  |  1 +
 t/t7006-pager.sh         | 15 +++++++++++++++
 4 files changed, 34 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/config.txt b/Documentation/config.txt
index b882a88214..183569786f 100644
--- a/Documentation/config.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config.txt
@@ -1292,6 +1292,16 @@ color.ui::
 	determined by a call to `isatty(3)`) or to a pager (unless
 	`color.pager` is set to false).
 +
+If you don't like the magic of `auto` and prefer for git to just ask
+`isatty(3)` whether it's connected to a terminal set this to
+`isatty`. This will cause it to always obey that function, except
+(like `auto`) if `TERM=dumb` is set in the environment. Currently this
+is equivalent to setting `auto` and `color.pager=false`, but in the
+future `auto` may be smart enough to handle other cases, i.e. when
+`isatty(3)` returns `1` but something else other than `TERM=dumb`
+suggests the terminal can't handle colors or not. If you'd like to
+avoid all that magic use `isatty`.
++
 Setting this to some value unknown to git will warn and fall back to
 `auto`. This is so that new values can be recognized in the future
 without the git configuration file being incompatible between versions
diff --git a/color.c b/color.c
index e52c6cdd29..05f95649bc 100644
--- a/color.c
+++ b/color.c
@@ -306,6 +306,8 @@ int git_config_colorbool(const char *var, const char *value)
 			return 1;
 		if (!strcasecmp(value, "auto"))
 			return GIT_COLOR_AUTO;
+		if (!strcasecmp(value, "isatty"))
+			return GIT_COLOR_ISATTY;
 	}
 
 	if (!var)
@@ -332,13 +334,14 @@ int git_config_colorbool(const char *var, const char *value)
 	return GIT_COLOR_AUTO;
 }
 
-static int check_auto_color(int fd)
+static int check_auto_color(int fd, int isatty_only)
 {
 	static int color_stderr_is_tty = -1;
 	int *is_tty_p = fd == 1 ? &color_stdout_is_tty : &color_stderr_is_tty;
 	if (*is_tty_p < 0)
 		*is_tty_p = isatty(fd);
-	if (*is_tty_p || (fd == 1 && pager_in_use() && pager_use_color)) {
+	if (*is_tty_p || (!isatty_only && fd == 1 && pager_in_use() &&
+			  pager_use_color)) {
 		if (!is_terminal_dumb())
 			return 1;
 	}
@@ -359,9 +362,10 @@ int want_color_fd(int fd, int var)
 	if (var < 0)
 		var = git_use_color_default;
 
-	if (var == GIT_COLOR_AUTO) {
+	if (var == GIT_COLOR_AUTO || var == GIT_COLOR_ISATTY) {
+		int isatty_only = var == GIT_COLOR_ISATTY;
 		if (want_auto[fd] < 0)
-			want_auto[fd] = check_auto_color(fd);
+			want_auto[fd] = check_auto_color(fd, isatty_only);
 		return want_auto[fd];
 	}
 	return var;
diff --git a/color.h b/color.h
index 5b744e1bc6..01d8cc01a5 100644
--- a/color.h
+++ b/color.h
@@ -57,6 +57,7 @@ struct strbuf;
 #define GIT_COLOR_NEVER  0
 #define GIT_COLOR_ALWAYS 1
 #define GIT_COLOR_AUTO   2
+#define GIT_COLOR_ISATTY 3
 
 /* A default list of colors to use for commit graphs and show-branch output */
 extern const char *column_colors_ansi[];
diff --git a/t/t7006-pager.sh b/t/t7006-pager.sh
index b16f2ac28b..ea4f2f47d0 100755
--- a/t/t7006-pager.sh
+++ b/t/t7006-pager.sh
@@ -309,6 +309,13 @@ test_expect_success 'no color when stdout is a regular file' '
 	! colorful colorless.log
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'no color when stdout is a regular file (isatty)' '
+	rm -f colorless.log &&
+	test_config color.ui isatty &&
+	git log >colorless.log &&
+	! colorful colorless.log
+'
+
 test_expect_success 'unknown color.ui values default to "auto" (regular file)' '
 	rm -f colorless.log &&
 	test_config color.ui doesnotexist &&
@@ -340,6 +347,14 @@ test_expect_success TTY 'colors are suppressed by color.pager' '
 	! colorful paginated.out
 '
 
+test_expect_success TTY 'colors are suppressed by color.ui=isatty when writing to a pager' '
+	rm -f paginated.out &&
+	test_config color.ui isatty &&
+	test_config color.pager true &&
+	test_terminal git log &&
+	! colorful paginated.out
+'
+
 test_expect_success 'color when writing to a file intended for a pager' '
 	rm -f colorful.log &&
 	test_config color.ui auto &&
-- 
2.17.0.290.gded63e768a
Previous: Jeff KingNext: Junio C Hamano
Message 13 of 18 in “color.ui docs & add color.ui=isatty”
  1. 0/4 color.ui docs & add color.ui=isattyÆvar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, May 30, 2018
  2. 2/4 config doc: clarify "to a terminal" in color.uiÆvar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, May 30, 2018
  3. Jeff KingMay 31, 2018
  4. 3/4 color.ui config: don't die on unknown valuesÆvar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, May 30, 2018
  5. Stefan BellerMay 30, 2018
  6. Junio C HamanoMay 30, 2018
  7. Ævar Arnfjörð BjarmasonMay 31, 2018
  8. Jeff KingJun 1, 2018
  9. 1/4 config doc: move color.ui documentation to one placeÆvar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, May 30, 2018
  10. Jeff KingMay 31, 2018
  11. Ævar Arnfjörð BjarmasonMay 31, 2018
  12. Jeff KingJun 1, 2018
  13. 4/4 color.ui config: add "isatty" settingÆvar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, May 30, 2018
  14. Junio C HamanoMay 30, 2018
  15. Ævar Arnfjörð BjarmasonMay 31, 2018
  16. Jeff KingMay 31, 2018
  17. Ævar Arnfjörð BjarmasonMay 31, 2018
  18. Jeff KingJun 1, 2018

Read the whole thread, see it on lore, or plain text.

$ cat FOOTERMessages come from the public archive at lore.kernel.org/git, fetched every hour. The front page is chosen and written each morning by an AI editor and can be wrong; the threads themselves are the record. About and API. For agents: an MCP server at https://gitlist.dev/mcp, and any thread, story or person page as Markdown by adding .md to its URL (or sending Accept: text/markdown). Details in /llms.txt.