colordiff

colored syntax highlighting wrapper for diff

TLDR

Compare files with colored output

$ colordiff [file1] [file2]

Unified diff format

$ colordiff -u [file1] [file2]

Pipe diff output through colordiff

$ diff -u [file1] [file2] | colordiff

Side-by-side comparison

$ colordiff -y [file1] [file2]

Compare directories

$ colordiff -r [dir1] [dir2]

View with pager

$ colordiff [file1] [file2] | less -R

SYNOPSIS

colordiff [diffoptions] file1 file2_

colordiff is a wrapper for diff that produces the same output with colored syntax highlighting. Colors improve readability when viewing differences at the command line.All options are passed through to diff except colordiff-specific options.

PARAMETERS

All diff options are supported, plus:--difftype=type

Specify diff type: diff, diffc, diffu, diffy, wdiff, debdiff

Standard diff options:-u

Unified format

-c

Context format

-y

Side-by-side

-r

Recursive directory comparison

CONFIGURATION

/etc/colordiffrc

System-wide configuration

~/.colordiffrc

User configuration

Configuration sets colors for:- plain text- new text (added)- old text (removed)- diff commands

PAGER USAGE

Use less -R to preserve ANSI colors:

$ colordiff file1 file2 | less -R

ALTERNATIVE

Modern diff (3.4+) supports built-in color:

$ diff --color file1 file2

CAVEATS

Written in Perl. Requires ANSI color support in terminal (xterm, etc.). Colors can be customized via configuration files.