colordiff(1) [debian man page]
COLORDIFF(1) COLORDIFF(1) NAME
colordiff - a tool to colorize diff output SYNOPSIS
colordiff [diff options] [colordiff 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 except for the colordiff-specific option 'difftype', e.g. colordiff --difftype=debdiff file1 file2 Valid values for 'difftype' are: diff, diffc, diffu, diffy, wdiff, debdiff; these correspond to plain diffs, context diffs, unified diffs, side-by-side diffs, wdiff output and debdiff output respectively. Use these overrides when colordiff is not able to determine the diff-type automatically. 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. 01/25/2009 COLORDIFF(1)
Check Out this Related Man Page
DIFF(1) General Commands Manual DIFF(1) NAME
diff - differential file and directory comparator SYNOPSIS
diff [ -l ] [ -r ] [ -s ] [ -cefhn ] [ -biwt ] dir1 dir2 diff [ -cefhn ] [ -biwt ] file1 file2 diff [ -Dstring ] [ -biw ] file1 file2 DESCRIPTION
If both arguments are directories, diff sorts the contents of the directories by name, and then runs the regular file diff algorithm (described below) on text files which are different. Binary files which differ, common subdirectories, and files which appear in only one directory are listed. Options when comparing directories are: -l long output format; each text file diff is piped through pr(1) to paginate it, other differences are remembered and summarized after all text file differences are reported. -r causes application of diff recursively to common subdirectories encountered. -s causes diff to report files which are the same, which are otherwise not mentioned. -Sname starts a directory diff in the middle beginning with file name. When run on regular files, and when comparing text files which differ during directory comparison, diff tells what lines must be changed in the files to bring them into agreement. Except in rare circumstances, diff finds a smallest sufficient set of file differences. If nei- ther file1 nor file2 is a directory, then either may be given as `-', in which case the standard input is used. If file1 is a directory, then a file in that directory whose file-name is the same as the file-name of file2 is used (and vice versa). There are several options for output format; the default output format contains lines of these forms: n1 a n3,n4 n1,n2 d n3 n1,n2 c n3,n4 These lines resemble ed commands to convert file1 into file2. The numbers after the letters pertain to file2. In fact, by exchanging `a' for `d' and reading backward one may ascertain equally how to convert file2 into file1. As in ed, identical pairs where n1 = n2 or n3 = n4 are abbreviated as a single number. Following each of these lines come all the lines that are affected in the first file flagged by `<', then all the lines that are affected in the second file flagged by `>'. Except for -b, -w, -i or -t which may be given with any of the others, the following options are mutually exclusive: -e produces a script of a, c and d commands for the editor ed, which will recreate file2 from file1. In connection with -e, the fol- lowing shell program may help maintain multiple versions of a file. Only an ancestral file ($1) and a chain of version-to-version ed scripts ($2,$3,...) made by diff need be on hand. A `latest version' appears on the standard output. (shift; cat $*; echo '1,$p') | ed - $1 Extra commands are added to the output when comparing directories with -e, so that the result is a sh(1) script for converting text files which are common to the two directories from their state in dir1 to their state in dir2. -f produces a script similar to that of -e, not useful with ed, and in the opposite order. -n produces a script similar to that of -e, but in the opposite order and with a count of changed lines on each insert or delete com- mand. This is the form used by rcsdiff(1). -c produces a diff with lines of context. The default is to present 3 lines of context and may be changed, e.g to 10, by -c10. With -c the output format is modified slightly: the output beginning with identification of the files involved and their creation dates and then each change is separated by a line with a dozen *'s. The lines removed from file1 are marked with `- '; those added to file2 are marked `+ '. Lines which are changed from one file to the other are marked in both files with with `! '. Changes which lie within <context> lines of each other are grouped together on output. (This is a change from the previous ``diff -c'' but the resulting output is usually much easier to interpret.) -h does a fast, half-hearted job. It works only when changed stretches are short and well separated, but does work on files of unlimited length. -Dstring causes diff to create a merged version of file1 and file2 on the standard output, with C preprocessor controls included so that a compilation of the result without defining string is equivalent to compiling file1, while defining string will yield file2. -b causes trailing blanks (spaces and tabs) to be ignored, and other strings of blanks to compare equal. -w is similar to -b but causes whitespace (blanks and tabs) to be totally ignored. E.g., ``if ( a == b )'' will compare equal to ``if(a==b)''. -i ignores the case of letters. E.g., ``A'' will compare equal to ``a''. -t will expand tabs in output lines. Normal or -c output adds character(s) to the front of each line which may screw up the indenta- tion of the original source lines and make the output listing difficult to interpret. This option will preserve the original source's indentation. FILES
/tmp/d????? /usr/libexec/diffh for -h /bin/diff for directory diffs /bin/pr SEE ALSO
cmp(1), cc(1), comm(1), ed(1), diff3(1) DIAGNOSTICS
Exit status is 0 for no differences, 1 for some, 2 for trouble. BUGS
Editing scripts produced under the -e or -f option are naive about creating lines consisting of a single `.'. When comparing directories with the -b, -w or -i options specified, diff first compares the files ala cmp, and then decides to run the diff algorithm if they are not equal. This may cause a small amount of spurious output if the files then turn out to be identical because the only differences are insignificant blank string or case differences. 4th Berkeley Distribution October 21, 1996 DIFF(1)