colordiff(1)
NAME
colordiff - a tool to colorize diff output
SYNOPSIS
colordiff [diff options] {file1} {file2}
DESCRIPTION
colordiff is a wrapper for diff and produces the same output as diff
but with coloured syntax highlighting at the command line to improve
readability. The output is similar to how a diff-generated patch might
appear in Vim or Emacs with the appropriate syntax highlighting options
enabled. The colour schemes can be read from a central configuration
file or from a local user ~/.colordiffrc file.
colordiff makes use of ANSI colours and as such will only work when
ANSI colours can be used - typical examples are xterms and Eterms, as
well as console sessions.
colordiff has been tested on various flavours of Linux and under
OpenBSD, but should be broadly portable to other systems.
USAGE
Use colordiff wherever you would normally use diff, or pipe output to
colordiff:
- For example:
- $ colordiff file1 file2
$ diff -u file1 file2 | colordiff - You can pipe the output to 'less', using the '-R' option (some systems
or terminal types may get better results using '-r' instead), which
keeps the colour escape sequences, otherwise displayed incorrectly or
discarded by 'less':
$ diff -u file1 file2 | colordiff | less -R- If you have wdiff installed, colordiff will correctly colourise the
added and removed text, provided that the '-n' option is given to
wdiff:
$ wdiff -n file1 file2 | colordiff- You may find it useful to make diff automatically call colordiff. Add the following line to ~/.bashrc (or equivalent):
alias diff=colordiff- Any options passed to colordiff are passed through to diff.
- Alternatively, a construct such as 'cvs diff SOMETHING | colordiff' can be included in ~/.bashrc as follows:
function cvsdiff () { cvs diff $@ | colordiff; }- Or, combining the idea above using 'less':
function cvsdiff () { cvs diff $@ | colordiff |less -R; }- Note that the function name, cvsdiff, can be customized.
FILES
- /etc/colordiffrc
- Central configuration file. User-specific settings can be enabled
by copying this file to ~/.colordiffrc and making the appropriate changes. - colordiffrc-lightbg
- Alternate configuration template for use with terminals having
light backgrounds. Copy this to /etc/colordiffrc or ~/.colordiffrc and customize.
BUGS
Bug reports and suggestions/patches to <davee@sungate.co.uk> please.
AUTHOR
- colordiff is written and maintained by Dave Ewart
<davee@sungate.co.uk>. This manual page and the source XML was written by Graham Wilson <graham@mknod.org> for Debian and is maintained by the author. Dave Ewart maintains the Debian package.