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https://github.com/banga/git-split-diffs

Syntax highlighted side-by-side diffs in your terminal
https://github.com/banga/git-split-diffs

diffs difftool git github split-diffs syntax-highlighting visual-studio-code

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Syntax highlighted side-by-side diffs in your terminal

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README 

        
# git-split-diffs



GitHub style split (side by side) diffs with syntax highlighting in your terminal.



![Screenshot of dark theme](screenshots/dark.png?raw=true)



![Screenshot of github-light theme](screenshots/github-light.png?raw=true)



[Demo 1](https://asciinema.org/a/Bsk7CFtZkDZ4Ea89BwDcbD8LA) | [Demo 2](https://asciinema.org/a/7HrYqF2vjfrKXt28bv6BUAcym)



## Usage



This currently requires `node` version 14 or newer to run.



### Install globally



```sh

npm install -g git-split-diffs



git config --global core.pager "git-split-diffs --color | less -RFX"

```



### Install locally



```sh

npm install git-split-diffs



git config core.pager "npx git-split-diffs --color | less -RFX"

```



### Use manually



```sh

git diff | git-split-diffs --color | less -RFX

```



## Customization



### Line wrapping



By default, lines are wrapped to fit in the screen. If you prefer to truncate them, update the `wrap-lines` setting:



```

git config split-diffs.wrap-lines false

```



### Inline changes



By default, salient changes within lines are also highlighted:

![Screenshot of inline changes](screenshots/inline-changes.png?raw=true)



You can disable this with the `highlight-line-changes` setting:



```

git config split-diffs.highlight-line-changes false

```



### Enable scrolling in the terminal



```sh

git config --global core.pager "git-split-diffs --color | less -+LFX"

```



(note the difference from the main configuration with the added `+` to the `less` command)



### Syntax highlighting



Syntax highlighting is supported via [shiki](https://github.com/shikijs/shiki/), which uses the same grammars and themes as vscode. Each theme specifies a default syntax highlighting theme to use, which can be overridden by:



```

git config split-diffs.syntax-highlighting-theme 

```



The supported syntax highlighting themes are listed at https://github.com/shikijs/textmate-grammars-themes/tree/main/packages/tm-themes#tm-themes



You can disable syntax highlighting by setting the name to empty:



```

git config split-diffs.syntax-highlighting-theme ''

```



### Narrow terminals



Split diffs can be hard to read on narrow terminals, so we revert to unified diffs if we cannot fit two lines of `min-line-width` on screen. This value is configurable:



```

git config split-diffs.min-line-width 40

```



This defaults to `80`, so screens below `160` characters will display unified diffs. Set it to `0` to always show split diffs.



## Themes



You can pick between several [themes](themes/):



### Arctic



Based on https://www.nordtheme.com/



```

git config split-diffs.theme-name arctic

```



![Screenshot of GitHub Dark (Dim) theme](screenshots/arctic.png?raw=true)



### Dark



This is the default theme.



```

git config split-diffs.theme-name dark

```



![Screenshot of dark theme](screenshots/dark.png?raw=true)



### Light



```

git config split-diffs.theme-name light

```



![Screenshot of light theme](screenshots/light.png?raw=true)



### GitHub Dark (Dim)



```

git config split-diffs.theme-name github-dark-dim

```



![Screenshot of GitHub Dark (Dim) theme](screenshots/github-dark-dim.png?raw=true)



### GitHub Light



```

git config split-diffs.theme-name github-light

```



![Screenshot of GitHub Light theme](screenshots/github-light.png?raw=true)



### Solarized Dark



As seen on https://github.com/altercation/solarized



```

git config split-diffs.theme-name solarized-dark

```



![Screenshot of Solarized Dark theme](screenshots/solarized-dark.png?raw=true)



### Solarized Light



```

git config split-diffs.theme-name solarized-light

```



![Screenshot of Solarized Light theme](screenshots/solarized-light.png?raw=true)



### Monochrome Dark



```

git config split-diffs.theme-name monochrome-dark

```



![Screenshot of Monochrome Dark theme](screenshots/monochrome-dark.png?raw=true)



### Monochrome Light



```

git config split-diffs.theme-name monochrome-light

```



![Screenshot of Monochrome Light theme](screenshots/monochrome-light.png?raw=true)



## Custom Themes



Default themes are loaded from the `git-split-diffs` bundle. To load a custom theme, set `theme-directory` in git config and create a `{theme-name}.json` file in that directory with the theme's definition. You can use one of the existing themes in [themes/](https://github.com/banga/git-split-diffs/tree/main/themes) as a starting point.



```

git config split-diffs.theme-directory 

git config split-diffs.theme-name 

```



This will use `/path/to/theme/name.json` as the theme.



## Performance



Tested by measuring the time it took to pipe the output `git log -p` to `/dev/null` via `git-split-diffs` with the default theme:



| Features enabled                                      | ms/kloc |

| ----------------------------------------------------- | ------- |

| Everything                                            | 45      |

| No syntax highlighting                                | 15      |

| No syntax highlighting, no inline change highlighting | 13      |



## Troubleshooting



### Not seeing diffs side-by-side?



See [#narrow-terminals](#narrow-terminals)



### Not seeing colors, or seeing fewer colors?



Text coloring is implemented using Chalk which supports [various levels of color](https://github.com/chalk/chalk#supportscolor). If Chalk is producing fewer colors than your terminal supports, try overriding Chalk's detection using a variation of the `--color` flag, e.g. `--color=16m` for true color. See Chalk's documentation or [this useful gist on terminal support](https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728) if issues persist.



### Want to remove background colors from a theme?



See [#custom-themes](#custom-themes) for instructions on customizing themes. Removing `backgroundColor` should usually work.



## Acknowledgements



-   [diff-so-fancy](https://github.com/so-fancy/diff-so-fancy) for showing what's possible

-   [shikijs](https://github.com/shikijs/shiki) for making it easy to do high quality syntax highlighting

-   [chalk](https://github.com/chalk/chalk) for making it easy to do terminal styling reliably

-   [delta](https://github.com/dandavison/delta) which approaches the same problem in Rust