Coloured, paged subversion diff output on Linux-like computers


Using subversion from the command line (svn), I often complained (to myself at least) about the bland output from a svn diff command. This isn’t strictly a subversion problem, since your regular diff gives the same uninspired output.

Here’s how to add automatic paging and highlight changes in bright colours.

Install colordiff on Ubuntu:

apt-get install colordiff

OS X:

port install colordiff

Make a new file called svndiff with the following inside:

#!/bin/bash
svn diff $* | colordiff | less -r

Make this file executable (chmod +x svndiff) and copy it somewhere in your path (I put it in /usr/local/bin).

The $* bash argument passes any arguments you give the script to the svn diff command, so you can still do things like:

svndiff file1 file2
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 2:54 pm and is filed under subversion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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