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

[Bruce Korb]

Well, I for one think it is horrible and belongs in post-processing
tools.  I find it an extreme nuisance all the arcane ways that
color can be introduced and new ways they can be foisted on the
users in some default manner.  Somebody somewhere will select
yellow for their black background and fail to make it conditional
on background and I'll wind up with yellow on white.  Forget it.
Post processing will work just fine.  "ls" and "grep" should undo it.
Thanks :-) - Bruce

Matthew Woehlke wrote:
>> ...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.
> 
> Well, I for one like this idea. Given that 'ls' and 'grep' do it, I
> don't think it is unprecedented.