How to display color by piping command to less?

Question

When I use:

msgattrib --untranslated pl.po

to see untranslated strings from po file I've got strings in color, but not when I use:

msgattrib --untranslated pl.po | less

@JeffSchaller thanks for the edit I don't remember, but probably wanted to add line after the code. — jcubic, Aug 17 '17 at 18:10

jcubic · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-19T08:26:23.133

8

msgattrib display colors only if executed from real terminal. You can use unbuffer command that's part of expect to make msgattrib think that it's executed from real terminal and then use -r option to handle ANSI escapes in less:

unbuffer msgattrib --untranslated pl.po | less -r

You can do that in any command that produce colors (ANSI escapes codes) based on existance of tty.

edited Aug 19 '17 at 08:26

answered Aug 17 '17 at 16:53

jcubic

9,932

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 18 '17 at 08:45

1

From the less man page:

-R or --RAW-CONTROL-CHARS
          Like -r, but only ANSI "color" escape sequences are output in "raw" form.  Unlike -r, the screen appearance is maintained correctly in most  cases.

The simplest way to have this enabled all the time is to set the LESS environment variable in your .profile or .login script. I use both -R and -X (which prevents the screen being cleared when less exits).

answered Aug 18 '17 at 08:45

rdanter

111

2

This don't change behavior of msgattrib that will not produce the colors if you pipe to less, -R will not change anything because there will be no escapes codes. – jcubic Mar 03 '20 at 20:57
@jcubic's comment here is correct, but this answer does provide that you won't need the -r or -R flag when piping output from unbuffer as in @jcubic's answer. – mc0e Sep 03 '23 at 05:17

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 10 '19 at 08:16

1

To show less with colors: less -R <text-file> Or config your less as an alias like alias less='less -R' inside the ~/.bashrc

answered Jun 10 '19 at 08:16

Yakir GIladi Edry

111

This just duplication of accepted and upvoted answer. Add answer only if yours is not already added. – jcubic Jun 10 '19 at 10:16
this is how to config it as always (with alias) – Yakir GIladi Edry Jun 11 '19 at 12:27
This is not question about aliases. Only about less and it's already answered with same code as your answer. – jcubic Jun 11 '19 at 14:02

How to display color by piping command to less?

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