Re: [PATCH 4/5] grep: Colorize filename, line number, and separator

From: Michael Witten <mfwitten@gmail.com>
Date: Feb 28, 2010, 22:26 UTC
Message-ID: <b4087cc51002281426m126a0c07l9f4a38088d0146b1@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <ca433831002281214q14e6e62bj54cf7227cd32873b@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 14:14, Mark Lodato <lodatom@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 6:43 AM, René Scharfe
> <rene.scharfe@lsrfire.ath.cx> wrote:
>> Am 27.02.2010 05:57, schrieb Mark Lodato:
>>> 1. With --name-only, GNU grep colors the filenames, but we do not.  I do
>>>    not see any point to making everything the same color.
>>
>> I guess they did it for consistency, so when you see "magenta" you think
>> "filename", and because it can be turned off with a switch.  With your
>> patch all filenames are coloured the same, too, by the way: using the
>> default foreground colour. :)
>
> Yes, I think I understand the reasoning, but to me it is very
> annoying.  However, if there is a consensus that we should follow GNU
> grep in this regard, I will do it.

I'm in favor of colorizing the output even when just one piece of information is presented. If I turn on colorization, then there should be colorization; my brain would expect it, especially when I first grep without --name-only and then turn on --name-only after getting results that I like.

Of course, I bet you find colorizing the filenames a nuisance because you don't care to pipe the relevant escape sequences to other commands. On that note, it would be nice to have something like GNU's --color=(auto|yes|no) with `auto' as the default for a plain --color.

As a compromise (and perhaps as an improvement), perhaps only the basename of the filename should be colorized when --name-only is used; that way, colorization is still being used to differentiate different data, and the rest of the path is usually not that interesting anyway. However, for consistency, I would still think it wise to colorize the dirname portion with `color.grep.filename', but color the basename portion with `color.grep.match' (as though the basename portion is the text being matched).

Sincerely, Michael Witten