# Autotest, unit-diff, and color output? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [December 8, 2006, 6:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/autotest-unit-diff-and-color-output/78800 "2006-12-08T18:27:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/47e85d/32.png) [@rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rsanheim)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 6:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/autotest-unit-diff-and-color-output/78800/1 "2006-12-08T18:27:28Z")
I’m using autotest with all its test driven goodness, and I believe that uses unit-diff to present a “saner” view of test difference output. I’d like to do colorize the output from unit-diff so its similar to what you see on a changeset on trac, for instance. Does anyone know anything that can colorize diffs in ruby, or know of a good starting point? Or at least where to start for outputting color in the terminal, so I can do “#{color.red} stuff” instead of using control characters. thanks, Rob ---
**Author:** ![rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/47e85d/32.png) [@rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rsanheim)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 7:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/autotest-unit-diff-and-color-output/78800/2 "2006-12-08T19:09:40Z")
Rob S. wrote: > I’m using autotest with all its test driven goodness, and I believe > that uses unit-diff to present a “saner” view of test difference > output. > > I’d like to do colorize the output from unit-diff so its similar to > what you see on a changeset on trac, for instance. Does anyone know > anything that can colorize diffs in ruby, or know of a good starting > point? Or at least where to start for outputting color in the > terminal, so I can do “#{color.red} stuff” instead of using control > characters. you can try facets’ ansicode lib written primarily by Florian F… t. ---
**Author:** ![rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/47e85d/32.png) [@rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rsanheim)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 7:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/autotest-unit-diff-and-color-output/78800/3 "2006-12-08T19:45:47Z")
Rob S. wrote: > I’m using autotest with all its test driven goodness, and I believe > that uses unit-diff to present a “saner” view of test difference > output. > > I’d like to do colorize the output from unit-diff so its similar to > what you see on a changeset on trac, for instance. Does anyone know > anything that can colorize diffs in ruby, or know of a good starting > point? Or at least where to start for outputting color in the > terminal, so I can do “#{color.red} stuff” instead of using control > characters. An easy, lightweight way to go would be to write a script that creates an HTML file out of the diff data, popping in color-change tags as required, using your own choice of colors and syntax rules. This would be very easy to do, once you have decided how you want the output to look. Of the available choices, HTML is actually very easy to exploit for a formatting task like this. Whoops, I just saw your having mentioned a terminal. Okay, then, you can use ANSI colors instead, using a similar process, this time the script could be a filter, the last step before displaying the data on the terminal. Same syntax rules, different way to create the colors. > so I can do "#{color.red} stuff … Okay, here is an example: * * * #!/usr/bin/ruby -w class ANSIColors ANSIColors::Col\_hash = { :black =\> 30, :red =\> 31, :green =\> 32, :yellow =\> 33, :blue =\> 34, :magenta =\> 35, :cyan =\> 36, :white =\> 37 } def ANSIColors::color(s) return “\033[#{Col\_hash[s]}m” end end puts “#{ANSIColors::color(:red)} this should be red.” puts “#{ANSIColors::color(:green)} this should be green.” puts “#{ANSIColors::color(:blue)} this should be blue.” puts “#{ANSIColors::color(:black)} this should be black.” * * * Try it on your terminal. If it doesn’t work, chances are your terminal is not ANSI-color enabled. ---
**Author:** ![rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/47e85d/32.png) [@rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rsanheim)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 1:28am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/autotest-unit-diff-and-color-output/78800/4 "2006-12-09T01:28:35Z")
On Dec 8, 2006, at 09:26 , Rob S. wrote: > I’m using autotest with all its test driven goodness, and I believe > that uses unit-diff to present a “saner” view of test difference > output. It does. > I’d like to do colorize the output from unit-diff so its similar to > what you see on a changeset on trac, for instance. Does anyone know > anything that can colorize diffs in ruby, or know of a good starting > point? Or at least where to start for outputting color in the > terminal, so I can do “#{color.red} stuff” instead of using control > characters. The easiest way to do this is to write (or find) a color-capable diff executable. This way you don’t have to change unit\_diff, just your path. – Eric H. - removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid - [http://blog.segment7.net](http://blog.segment7.net) I LIT YOUR GEM ON FIRE! ---
**Author:** ![rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/47e85d/32.png) [@rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rsanheim)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 10:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/autotest-unit-diff-and-color-output/78800/5 "2006-12-10T22:34:07Z")
On 12/11/06, Rob S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Thanks for the responses everyone. Some quick google searches didn’t > turn up any drop in color replacements for diff, though I did find it > as a feature request submitted for diff, but way to recently for any > code to be written yet. $ esearch colordiff [Results for search key : colordiff] [Applications found : 1] - app-misc/colordiff Latest version available: 1.0.5-r2 Latest version installed: 1.0.5-r2 Size of downloaded files: 41 kB Homepage: [http://colordiff.sourceforge.net/](http://colordiff.sourceforge.net/) Description: Colorizes output of diff License: GPL-2 martin ---
**Author:** ![rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/47e85d/32.png) [@rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rsanheim)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 9:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/autotest-unit-diff-and-color-output/78800/6 "2006-12-10T21:31:58Z")
On 12/8/06, Eric H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > The easiest way to do this is to write (or find) a color-capable diff > executable. This way you don’t have to change unit\_diff, just your > path. Thanks for the responses everyone. Some quick google searches didn’t turn up any drop in color replacements for diff, though I did find it as a feature request submitted for diff, but way to recently for any code to be written yet. - Rob ---
**Author:** ![rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/47e85d/32.png) [@rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rsanheim)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2006, 2:02am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/autotest-unit-diff-and-color-output/78800/7 "2006-12-11T02:02:29Z")
On 12/10/06, Martin DeMello [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > ``` > License: GPL-2 > > ``` > > martin Thanks, apparently I should’ve searched on one word instead of “color diff”. 🙂 - rob ---
**Author:** ![rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/47e85d/32.png) [@rsanheim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rsanheim)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2006, 11:19am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/autotest-unit-diff-and-color-output/78800/8 "2006-12-11T11:19:15Z")
On 12/11/06, Rob S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > On 12/10/06, Martin DeMello [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > $ esearch colordiff > > [Results for search key : colordiff] > > [Applications found : 1] > > Thanks, apparently I should’ve searched on one word instead of “color diff”. 🙂 It’s easier when you know it’s there 🙂 I found it the first time by searching for ‘diff’ in the portage tree martin