Bug#396485: diff & sdiff: please allow full-color output (fwd)

[Santiago Vila]

Hello.

I received this from the Debian bug system:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jason Spiro <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 19:51:18 -0500
Subject: diff & sdiff: please allow full-color output

Package: diff
Version: 2.8.7
Severity: wishlist

It would be great if diff and/or sdiff could show their output in color.

You could add an option like -V, for "view color", for the feature. Or
you could add a --color=auto switch like in ls. Or, you could pick the
most convenient option for the most users: you could show color
automatically if stdout is an interactive terminal as opposed to a
pipe. (This way even people who don't know about the new option will
automatically find out about it.)

(When I view diffs in vim, they show up in color. Lines like "3a2,3"
are yellowish-brown, "<" lines are magenta, and ">" lines are cyan.
But to see this wonderful effect, I must open the diffs in vim. GNU
diff and sdiff have no such feature.)

P.S. Thanks for writing / packaging the diffutils. I use them
constantly and they always work well for me.

-- 
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