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