Re: Adding color to git diff output.

> On Tue, 11 Apr 2006, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> 
> > sean <seanlkml@sympatico.ca> writes:
> > 
> > > Linus posted a colorize program a while back[1] but it wasn't taken into git.  
> > > The patch below takes a different approach, adding a GIT_DIFF_PAGER variable.
> > > You can use it by assigning a filter to the environment variable, like so:
> > >
> > > export GIT_DIFF_PAGER="colordiff | less -RS"
> > 
> > Sounds like a nice idea, even maybe suitable in a FAQ.
> > Unfortunately colordiff does not seem to grok diff --cc output,
> > but that is fine ;-).
> 
> Well, the real problem - at least as far as my usage is concerned - is 
> that I'd want colorization to be more integrated so that it can be turned 
> off when not appropriate.
> 
> Think "colorized 'ls'", where if you enable colorization by default, it 
> only colorizes when the output is a tty, so that you can still script 
> things and output things to a file or so, without it getting colorized. 
> 
> Because most "patch" programs (git-apply included) do not want to see 
> colorization ;)
> 
> So I'd suggest that the "git diff" script at a minimum first check whether 
> the output is to a tty before it decides to use GIT_DIFF_PAGER. With 
> perhaps an option to _force_ colorization if you want to.
> 
> Now, I don't actually enable ls-colorization by default, and I probably 
> wouldn't do it for git diff either, but at least for diffs I _might_. But 
> I'd definitely want it to be turned off automatically so that I can do
> 
> 	git diff .. > ~/patch-file
> 
> without having to remember to turn it off explicitly.
>