Re: git diff odds

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Mar 26, 2008, 02:19 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.1.00.0803251914150.2775@woody.linux-foundation.org>
In-Reply-To: <200803260100.m2Q10v2l005189@localhost.localdomain>

On Wed, 26 Mar 2008, Xavier Maillard wrote:

> 
> With LESS variable set as "-M", git diff displays escape sequence
> instead of the colored ouput (as requested in my .git/config =>
> color.diff=auto).

That's how 'less' works. It shows escape sequences as the escapes by default.

> If set to FRSX, it works perfectly.

It's the '-R' part that does the magic.

> Is this a bug ?

No, it's documented less behaviour. See "man less".

If you want to use "-M", you can mix it with R (or the other flags, for that matter) and use "LESS=MR" or "LESS=FRSXM" or whatever you like. But if you want less to pass through colors, you need that R there somewhere.

(You could use lower-case "r" too, but that's very dangerous, since it lets through _all_ escape sequences, including the ones that really screw up your terminal experience)

		Linus