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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
"/usr/share/sgml/docbook/dtd/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd" [
<!ENTITY diff "<command>diff</command>">
<!ENTITY colordiff "<application>colordiff</application>">
]>
<!-- mostly borrowed from bogofilter's bogofilter.xml file, originally
by eric raymond -->
<refentry id='colordiff.1'>
<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>colordiff</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>1</manvolnum>
</refmeta>
<refnamediv id='name'>
<refname>colordiff</refname>
<refpurpose>a tool to colorize &diff; output</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>
<refsynopsisdiv id='synopsis'>
<cmdsynopsis>
<command>colordiff</command>
<arg><replaceable>&diff; options</replaceable></arg>
<arg choice='req'><replaceable>file1</replaceable></arg>
<arg choice='req'><replaceable>file2</replaceable></arg>
</cmdsynopsis>
</refsynopsisdiv>
<refsect1 id='description'><title>Description</title>
<para>&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 <application>Vim</application> or <application>Emacs</application> with the
appropriate syntax highlighting options enabled. The colour schemes can be
read from a central configuration file or from a local user
<filename>~/.colordiffrc</filename> file.</para>
<para>&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.</para>
<para>&colordiff; has been tested on various flavours of Linux and under
OpenBSD, but should be broadly portable to other systems.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1 id="usage"><title>Usage</title>
<para>Use &colordiff; wherever you would normally use &diff;, or pipe output
to &colordiff;:</para>
<para>For example:
<screen>
$ colordiff file1 file2
$ diff -u file1 file2 | colordiff
</screen>
</para>
<para>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':
<screen>
$ diff -u file1 file2 | colordiff | less -R
</screen>
</para>
<para>If you have <command>wdiff</command> installed, colordiff will correctly
colourise the added and removed text, provided that the '-n' option is given to
<command>wdiff</command>:
<screen>
$ wdiff -n file1 file2 | colordiff
</screen>
</para>
<para>You may find it useful to make &diff; automatically call
<command>colordiff</command>. Add the following line to
<filename>~/.bashrc</filename> (or equivalent):
<screen>
alias diff=colordiff
</screen>
</para>
<para>Any options passed to &colordiff; are passed through to &diff;.</para>
<para>Alternatively, a construct such as 'cvs diff SOMETHING | colordiff' can be
included in <filename>~/.bashrc</filename> as follows:
<screen>
function cvsdiff () { cvs diff $@ | colordiff; }
</screen>
</para>
<para>Or, combining the idea above using 'less':
<screen>
function cvsdiff () { cvs diff $@ | colordiff |less -R; }
</screen>
</para>
<para>Note that the function name, cvsdiff, can be customized.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='files'><title>Files</title>
<variablelist><varlistentry>
<term><filename>/etc/colordiffrc</filename></term>
<listitem><para>Central configuration file. User-specific settings can be
enabled by copying this file to <filename>~/.colordiffrc</filename> and
making the appropriate changes.</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><filename>colordiffrc-lightbg</filename></term>
<listitem><para>Alternate configuration template for use with terminals having
light backgrounds. Copy this to /etc/colordiffrc or ~/.colordiffrc and
customize.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry></variablelist>
</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='bugs'><title>Bugs</title>
<para>Bug reports and suggestions/patches to <email>davee@sungate.co.uk</email>
please.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='author'><title>Author</title>
<para>&colordiff; is written and maintained by Dave Ewart
<email>davee@sungate.co.uk</email>. This manual page and the
source XML was written by Graham Wilson <email>graham@mknod.org</email> for
Debian and is maintained by the author. Dave Ewart maintains the Debian
package, sponsored by Graham Wilson.</para>
</refsect1>
</refentry>
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