Diff So Fancy

August 13, 2018

I find it quite hard to make sense of the output from git diff. Let’s just say that it is somewhat off-putting. diff-so-fancy is an open source project to solve this problem and help make your diff much less uglier.

Installation

There are a lot of ways to install it but I prefer to install all my tools with Brew. So run the following in your terminal:

$~ brew install diff-so-fancy

Configuration

To use diff-so-fancy, you have to set it up globally. Run the following:

$~ git config --global core.pager "diff-so-fancy | less --tabs=4 -RFX"

This will change your ~/.gitconfig like so

[core]
    ... // other settings
    pager = diff-so-fancy | less --tabs=4 -RFX

When you run git diff, you will noticed how much of an improvement that diff-so-fancy brings. There are a few more customizations that can be done. Try it on your own.

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tools