1COLORDIFF(1)                     User Commands                    COLORDIFF(1)
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NAME

6       colordiff - a tool to colorize diff output
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SYNOPSIS

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

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

27       Use colordiff wherever you would normally use diff, or instead pipe
28       output to colordiff:
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30       For example:
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32           $ colordiff file1 file2
33           $ diff -u file1 file2 | colordiff
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35       You can pipe the output to 'less', using the '-R' option (some systems
36       or terminal types may get better results using '-r' instead), which
37       keeps the colour escape sequences, otherwise displayed incorrectly or
38       discarded by 'less':
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40           $ diff -u file1 file2 | colordiff | less -R
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42       If you want to force disable colour escape sequences (for example pipe
43       the output to patch), you can use option '--color=no' to do so:
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45           $ diff -u file1 file2 | colordiff --color=no | patch -p0 -d another-working-dir
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47       If you have wdiff installed, colordiff will correctly colourise the
48       added and removed text, provided that the '-n' option is given to
49       wdiff:
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51           $ wdiff -n file1 file2 | colordiff
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53       You may find it useful to make diff automatically call colordiff. Add
54       the following line to ~/.bashrc (or equivalent):
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56           alias diff=colordiff
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58       Any options passed to colordiff are passed through to diff except for
59       the colordiff-specific option 'difftype', e.g.
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61           colordiff --difftype=debdiff file1 file2
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63       Valid values for 'difftype' are: diff, diffc, diffu, diffy, wdiff,
64       debdiff; these correspond to plain diffs, context diffs, unified diffs,
65       side-by-side diffs, wdiff output and debdiff output respectively. Use
66       these overrides when colordiff is not able to determine the diff-type
67       automatically.
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69       Alternatively, a construct such as 'cvs diff SOMETHING | colordiff' can
70       be included in ~/.bashrc as follows:
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72           function cvsdiff () { cvs diff $@ | colordiff; }
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74       Or, combining the idea above using 'less':
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76           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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80       By default colordiff returns the exit code of the underlying diff
81       invocation (if there is one), but there are some circumstances where it
82       is useful to force colordiff's exit code to be zero: to do this use the
83       option '--fakeexitcode':
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85           colordiff --fakeexitcode ...
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OPTIONS

89       colordiff will send most options through to diff, but there are various
90       colordiff-specific options which can be used:
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92       --help
93           Show these colordiff-specific options
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95       --color=(yes|no)
96           Force (or suppress) display of colours in output
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98       --color=patches=(yes|no)
99           Force (or suppress) inclusion of colour codes in patch output
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101       --color-term-output-only
102           Force colour to only appear in terminal output
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104       --difftype=DIFFTYPE
105           Force difftype detection to specified format. DIFFTYPE can be:
106           diff, diffc, diffu, diffy, debdiff, wdiff
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108       --(no)banner
109           Show (or suppress) the colordiff banner
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FILES

112       /etc/colordiffrc
113           Central configuration file. User-specific settings can be enabled
114           by copying this file to ~/.colordiffrc and making the appropriate
115           changes.
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117       colordiffrc-lightbg
118           Alternate configuration template for use with terminals having
119           light backgrounds. Copy this to /etc/colordiffrc or ~/.colordiffrc
120           and customize.
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122       colordiffrc-gitdiff
123           Alternate configuration template for use with terminals having dark
124           backgrounds, with colour defaults set to match the output of 'git
125           diff'. Copy this to /etc/colordiffrc or ~/.colordiffrc and
126           customize.
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BUGS

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

132       Dave Ewart
133           colordiff author and Debian packager
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135       Graham Wilson
136           Manual page and XML source author
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138       Colin Tuckley
139           Debian package sponsor
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143colordiff                         12/22/2022                      COLORDIFF(1)
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