I cannot get:
git difftool -b -y -x "diff --color --suppress-common-lines -y -w -W 200" master:file.txt file.txt
to retain its coloured output when piping to less -R. What am I doing wrong?
I think I've tried all the git color config options, e.g.
git -c color.ui=always difftool --color=always -b -y -x "diff --color --suppress-common-lines -y -w -W 200" master:file.txt file.txt | less -R
But there's no color. As soon as I remove the pipe to less -R, I see coloured output. Any ideas?
Edit: Thanks to @jonathan-wakely, I was missing the =always argument to the --color option in the external difftool diff command. This now keeps the colors when piping to less:
git difftool -b -y -x "/usr/local/bin/diff --color=always --suppress-common-lines -y -w -W 200" master:file.txt file.txt
The colours are not coming from git they're coming from the external diff tool, so that's what decides whether to use colours or not. So you need to use -x "diff --color=always ..." to tell diff to use colours even when the output is not going to the terminal.