How to get diff working like git-diff?

Question

I like the output formatting of git diff. The color and the +/- representation of changes between lines is easier to read than GNU diff.

I can run git diff using --no-index flag outside of a git repo and it works fine. However, it appears to be missing the --exclude option for excluding files or subdirectories from a recursive diff.

Is there a way to get the best of both worlds? (color options and +/- format of git diff and --exclude option of GNU diff).

I've experimented with colordiff, but I still prefer the output format of git diff

Solution 1

This will do the +/- rather than < and >.

diff -u file1 file2

Since GNU diffutils 3.4 the flag --color has been added. Combining both makes the following:

diff --color -u file1 file2

The flag --color also takes an argument, valid options are never, always, or auto. Useful when you want to be more explicit on what needs to be done.

Solution 2

You can also use git diff --no-index -- A B (via manpage).

Solution 3

1. Install colordiff.

2. Update your ~/.colordiffrc (copying /etc/colordiffrc first, if necessary):

   # be more git-like:
   plain=off
   newtext=darkgreen
   oldtext=darkred
   diffstuff=darkcyan
   

3. Use colordiff -u file1 file2 for two files or colordiff -ruN path1 path2 for recursively comparing paths.

It's not exactly the same, but it's very close.

Solution 4

This is what I suggest and it's pretty close

diff -u FILE1 FILE2 | colordiff | less -R

• colordiff: You'll have to install this
  • brew install colordiff on my Mac.
  • port install colordiff on some Macs.
  • sudo apt-get install colordiff on Debian or Ubuntu
  • For other platforms, download the source from the main page or GitHub and follow the installation instructions
• -R: this tells Less to show colors instead of the raw codes.

I ultimately used -w because I didn't want to see whitespace diffs.

diff -w -u FILE1 FILE2 | colordiff | less -R

Edit: As suggested by @Ciprian Tomoiaga in the comment, you can make this a function and put it in your ~/.bashrc file too.

function gdiff () { diff -u $@ | colordiff | less -R; }

Solution 5

GNU diff has a --color option since version 3.4 in late 2016 according to this answer on the Unix SE. That alongside -u should be enough to mimic the output of git diff:

diff -u --color=always file1 file2 | less -r

--color must be always when used in a pipe, auto will turn off color in pipes.

I've only tried this with Git Bash on Windows, where less -R would only color the first line of a hunk. less -r fixed it for me in that case.

View more solutions

Comments

[Rudie]

To make the blue for additions green, change newtext in /etc/colordiff. I think git uses green?

[AJM]

I had never heard of the --no-index flag until now. I've just used it to compare the output from git show to the diff of two files - thanks for that!

[Mzzzzzz]

Cool, this combined with colordiff gets me close enough to what I want. Guess I need to scroll further down the man page next time... Thanks!

[Emil Lundberg]

+1, but sadly this doesn't work if one of the files is a symlink.

[tr33hous]

This is for the diff in git. He was asking for the diff program options

[Ciprian Tomoiagă]

To have a single bash function for this add to the .bashrc: function gdiff () { diff -u $@ | colordiff | less -R; }

[J. Katzwinkel]

+1 This is very useful as it shows how to make git report where two tracked files A and B differ in comparison with each other instead of where each file has been modified relative to their last respective revision.

[kkm]

@EmilLundberg: works for me with symlinks in git 1.9.1 on Linux. I do not know whether earlier versions are broken.

[Samuel Lampa]

A simple way to get colorization with diff -u, is also to pipe the output to tig, the commandline git repo viewer: diff -u file1 file2 | tig.

[Ken Williams]

git diff --no-index is great, but as the OP pointed out, it lacks the --exclude flag, so it's often of very limited usefulness.

[iBug]

Install colordiff from your apt/yum/pacman repository and use it.

[Pat Myron]

Needed to enable Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) on Amazon Linux to install colordiff: docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/…

[Syrtis Major]

Besides colordiff, you can also get color with vim by defining cdiff() { diff -u $@ | vim -R -; }.

[Adam Stewart]

Unfortunately this doesn't work on macOS, the BSD diff uses -u for a different option.

[Bhupesh Varshney]

Adding --color=always will enable colors

[Kaiwen Sun]

For those who would like to install/upgrade the latest version of diff on Mac, you can run brew install diffutils, then reopen the terminal. -- from unix.stackexchange.com/a/592067/363687