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 di

Answer 1

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; }

Answer 2

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.