git diff odd characters on IBM i operating system

Question

I am getting weird output when doing a git diff from bash on an IBM i machine (fka iSeries). For example, below there are ^[[ characters suffixed with an integer. How do I get these to show as a normal git diff without all the extra busyness.

^[[1mdiff --git a/libtest/GNUmakefile b/libtest/GNUmakefile^[[m
^[[1mindex 9e70664..65c3097 100644^[[m
^[[1m--- a/libtest/GNUmakefile^[[m
^[[1m+++ b/libtest/GNUmakefile^[[m
^[[36m@@ -153,6 +153,13 @@^[[m ^[[mifneq ($(findstring mingw, $(OS)),)^[[m
   LIBEXT = dll^[[m
   PICFLAGS=^[[m
 endif^[[m
^[[32m+^[[m
^[[32m+^[[m^[[32mifeq ($(OS), os400)^[[m
^[[32m+^[[m^[[32m  LIBEXT = a^[[m
^[[32m+^[[m^[[32m  SOFLAGS = -shared -static-libgcc^[[m
^[[32m+^[[m^[[32m  PICFLAGS += -pthread^[[m
^[[32m+^[[m^[[32mendif^[[m
^[[32m+^[[m

Answer 1

This is most likely due to git coloring and IBMi's translation of [ (bracket) characters.

You can check whether git coloring is turned on by running the following:

$ git config --list
[email protected]
user.name=Aaron Bartell
color.ui=auto
core.repositoryformatversion=0
core.filemode=true
core.bare=false
core.logallrefupdates=true
core.ignorecase=true

In this case color.ui=auto is turning coloring on for everything. Run the following command to turn coloring off for just git diff:

git config --global color.diff false

Now when you run git diff it should look as you'd expect:

diff --git a/libtest/GNUmakefile b/libtest/GNUmakefile
index 9e70664..65c3097 100644
--- a/libtest/GNUmakefile
+++ b/libtest/GNUmakefile
@@ -153,6 +153,13 @@ ifneq ($(findstring mingw, $(OS)),)
   LIBEXT = dll
   PICFLAGS=
 endif
+
+ifeq ($(OS), os400)
+  LIBEXT = a
+  SOFLAGS = -shared -static-libgcc
+  PICFLAGS += -pthread
+endif
+