1COLORDIFF(1)                                                      COLORDIFF(1)
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NAME

6       colordiff - a tool to colorize diff output
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SYNOPSIS

9       colordiff [diff options] {file1} {file2}
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DESCRIPTION

13       colordiff  is  a  wrapper for diff and produces the same output as diff
14       but with coloured syntax highlighting at the command  line  to  improve
15       readability.  The output is similar to how a diff-generated patch might
16       appear in Vim or Emacs with the appropriate syntax highlighting options
17       enabled.  The  colour  schemes can be read from a central configuration
18       file or from a local user ~/.colordiffrc file.
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21       colordiff makes use of ANSI colours and as such will only work when AN‐
22       SI  colours  can  be  used - typical examples are xterms and Eterms, as
23       well as console sessions.
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26       colordiff has been tested on various flavours of Linux and under  Open‐
27       BSD, but should be broadly portable to other systems.
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USAGE

31       Use  colordiff  wherever you would normally use diff, or pipe output to
32       colordiff:
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35       For example:
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38              $ colordiff file1 file2 $ diff -u file1 file2 | colordiff
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42       You can pipe the output to 'less', using the '-R' option (some  systems
43       or  terminal  types  may  get better results using '-r' instead), which
44       keeps the colour escape sequences, otherwise displayed  incorrectly  or
45       discarded by 'less':
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48              $ diff -u file1 file2 | colordiff | less -R
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52       You  may  find it useful to make diff automatically call colordiff. Add
53       the following line to ~/.bashrc (or equivalent):
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56              alias diff=colordiff
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60       Any options passed to colordiff are passed through to diff.
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63       Alternatively, a construct such as 'cvs diff SOMETHING | colordiff' can
64       be included in ~/.bashrc as follows:
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67              function cvsdiff () { cvs diff $@ | colordiff; }
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71       Or, combining the idea above using 'less':
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74              function cvsdiff () { cvs diff $@ | colordiff |less -R; }
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78       Note that the function name, cvsdiff, can be customized.
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FILES

82       /etc/colordiffrc
83              Central  configuration  file.  User-specific settings can be en‐
84              abled by copying this file to ~/.colordiffrc and making the  ap‐
85              propriate changes.
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88       colordiffrc-lightbg
89              Alternate  configuration  template for use with terminals having
90              light backgrounds. Copy  this  to  /etc/colordiffrc  or  ~/.col‐
91              ordiffrc and customize.
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BUGS

95       Bug reports and suggestions/patches to <davee@sungate.co.uk> please.
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AUTHOR

99       colordiff   is   written  and  maintained  by  Dave  Ewart  <davee@sun‐
100       gate.co.uk>. This manual page and the source XML was written by  Graham
101       Wilson  <graham@mknod.org>  for Debian and is maintained by the author.
102       Dave Ewart maintains the Debian package, sponsored by Graham Wilson.
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107                                                                  COLORDIFF(1)
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