delta

syntax-highlighting pager for diffs

TLDR

View git diff with delta

$ git diff | delta

Compare two files

$ delta [file1.txt] [file2.txt]

Use side-by-side view

$ delta -s [file1.txt] [file2.txt]

Show line numbers

$ delta -n [file1.txt] [file2.txt]

Use specific syntax theme

$ delta --syntax-theme [Dracula] [file1.txt] [file2.txt]

Highlight word-level changes

$ delta --word-diff-regex '\w+' [file1.txt] [file2.txt]

Enable hyperlinks in output

$ delta --hyperlinks [file1.txt] [file2.txt]

Configure as git pager

$ git config --global core.pager delta

SYNOPSIS

delta [options] [file1] [file2]

delta is a syntax-highlighting pager for git, diff, and grep output. It provides beautiful, readable diffs with features like side-by-side view, line numbering, and word-level change highlighting.
delta is designed as a git pager replacement, integrating seamlessly with git diff, git show, git log, and git blame. It uses the same syntax highlighting engine as bat, supporting hundreds of languages.
Features include navigation between hunks, customizable themes, hyperlinks to line numbers, and special handling of merge conflicts. It can also process unified diff output from other tools.

PARAMETERS

FILE1 FILE2

Files to compare (reads from stdin if not provided).

-s, --side-by-side

Side-by-side display mode.

-n, --line-numbers

Show line numbers.

--syntax-theme THEME

Syntax highlighting theme.

--word-diff-regex REGEX

Highlight word-level changes using regex to define words.

--hyperlinks

Render commit hashes, file paths, and line numbers as terminal hyperlinks.

--features NAMES

Activate named feature sets defined in gitconfig.

--paging auto|always|never

Control pager usage.

--true-color auto|always|never

Control 24-bit RGB color output.

--navigate

Enable navigation with n/N keys.

--dark/--light

Optimize for dark/light terminal.

--diff-so-fancy

Emulate diff-so-fancy output.

--help

Display help information.

CONFIGURATION

~/.gitconfig

Configure delta as the default git pager with core.pager and delta.* options.

CAVEATS

Requires terminal with true color support for best results. Large diffs may be slow to render. Some themes may not work well with all terminal color schemes.

HISTORY

delta was created by Dan Davison and released in 2019. It was inspired by diff-so-fancy but implemented in Rust for better performance and with additional features like syntax highlighting.