Color in git-log

Question

When you run git log --decorate --pretty=oneline the output will have entries like (HEAD, refs/published/master, master) with coloration.

I also have the following in my gitconfig:

[color "branch"]
    current = yellow reverse
    local = yellow
    remote = green

How do you replicate those colors when doing a custom format like the following?

git log --decorate --stat --graph --pretty=format:"%d %Cgreen%h%Creset (%ar - %Cred%an%Creset), %s%n"

Spyglass

Answer 1

As of git 1.8.3 (May 24, 2013), you can use %C(auto) to decorate %d in the format string of git log.

From the release notes:

 * "git log --format" specifier learned %C(auto) token that tells Git
   to use color when interpolating %d (decoration), %h (short commit
   object name), etc. for terminal output.)

Calamus

Answer 2

The git log --decorate will put by default:

• the HEAD in cyan
• the remote branches in red
• the tag in green

and can be changed through color.decorate config.

But the git log --format don't offer a way to display specifically the HEAD or remotes or branch: all three are displayed through %d, with one color possible.

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Update May 2013, as mentioned below by Elad Shahar (upvoted), git 1.8.3 offers one more option:

git log –format now sports a %C(auto) token that tells Git to use color when resolving %d (decoration), %h (short commit object name), etc. for terminal output.

This Atlassian blog post comments that this feature is part of several others focused on format (git rebase, git count-objects) and colors (git branch -vv)

This comes in addition of the previous auto,reset of 1.8.2, which automatically disables colors when the output is not used for a terminal1

%C(auto,blue)Hello%C(auto,reset)

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Note: git 2.4+ (Q2 2015) will do a better job of resetting color around branch names.
See commit 5ee8758 by Junio C Hamano (gitster):

log --decorate: do not leak "commit" color into the next item

In "git log --decorate", you would see the commit header like this:

commit ... (HEAD, jc/decorate-leaky-separator-color)

where "commit ... (" is painted in color.diff.commit, "HEAD" in color.decorate.head, ", " in color.diff.commit, the branch name in color.decorate.branch and then closing ")" in color.diff.commit.

If you wanted to paint the HEAD and local branch name in the same color as the body text (perhaps because cyan and green are too faint on a black-on-white terminal to be readable), you would not want to have to say

[color "decorate"]
    head = black
    branch = black

because that you would not be able to reuse same configuration on a white-on-black terminal. You would naively expect

[color "decorate"]
    head = normal
branch = normal

to work, but unfortunately it does not.
It paints the string "HEAD" and the branch name in the same color as the opening parenthesis or comma between the decoration elements.
This is because the code forgets to reset the color after printing the "prefix" in its own color.

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Note that git 2.5 (Q2 2015) fixes a bug:

See commit 429ad20 by Junio C Hamano (gitster), 13 May 2015.
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit fd70780, 22 May 2015)}

log: do not shorten decoration names too early

The "log --decorate" enhancement in Git 2.4 that shows the commit at the tip of the current branch e.g. "HEAD -> master", did not work with --decorate=full.

---

Git 2.9.x+ (Q3 2016) will fix another bug and honor color=auto for %C(auto)

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Git 2.10.2 (Oct. 2016) fixes other bugs with commit 82b83da (29 Sep 2016), and commit c99ad27 (17 Sep 2016) by René Scharfe (``).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 76796d4, 28 Oct 2016)}

pretty: avoid adding reset for %C(auto) if output is empty

We emit an escape sequence for resetting color and attribute for %C(auto) to make sure automatic coloring is displayed as intended.
Stop doing that if the output strbuf is empty, i.e. when %C(auto) appears at the start of the format string, because then there is no need for a reset and we save a few bytes in the output.

pretty: let %C(auto) reset all attributes

Reset colors and attributes upon %C(auto) to enable full automatic control over them; otherwise attributes like bold or reverse could still be in effect from previous %C placeholders.

Marcoux

is there no way to use --decorate and --pretty="...stuff"? – Spyglass

@NorthlsUp: --decorate seems to have its own implementation and configuration, while --pretty offers the same information through %d as one block, meaning you cannot have the same fine-grained level of color configuration with --pretty than you have with --decorate. – Marcoux

The only difference I see when I add "--decorate" after "git log" is the repos begin with either "refs/heads/..." or "refs/remotes...". The colors show up either way. Any idea what would cause this? The reason I ask is my .gitconfig does not show any color properties. I'm wondering where i can find my "color.decorate" property. I don't see it in my .gitconfig file. – Drunken

@JWoodchuck Try git config --show-origin -l: you will see all your configs. You can then grep for "color". – Marcoux

Yep, nothing shows up when i grep for color, which makes where the settings are showing up so mysterious. – Drunken

@JWoodchuck That might be because color.ui is set to true or auto since Git 1.8.4: git-scm.com/docs/git-config#git-config-colorui – Marcoux

Sounds plausible, considering that's apparently from a long time ago and I'm on 2.16.2. Thanks! – Drunken

Answer 3

Parenthesize them:

%C(...): color specification, as described in color.branch.* config option

So %C(yellow reverse) would work.

Elagabalus

not quite, %d is all branches so it could look like (HEAD, master), in this case head should be blue and master should be green (I believe those are the default colors). where %C(yellow)%d%Creset would make it all the same color. – Spyglass

Oh, coloring the individual decorations. I think it’s impossible. The code to render log entries is essentially implemented twice. – Elagabalus

Too bad this isn't possible... I would love to do git log --decorate --oneline --date=... – Wordsmith

Answer 4

The config option log.decorate can enable/disable default decorations in logs.

git config --global log.decorate full

Once that is done you can use color.decorate.* to play with the colors

Sillsby

log.decorate=full causes the ref names to be printed with their prefixes (refs/heads/, etc.); I find log.decorate=short more useful. – Keratogenous

Very useful setting, although I also prefer short rather than full – Miniature

Answer 5

Some may want to use this : %C(colorname) This doesn't need to change the color config.

Example : Coloring the author name in yellow

--pretty=format:"%C(yellow)%an%Creset"

Regular ANSI colors should work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code

• black
• red
• green
• yellow
• blue
• magenta
• cyan
• white

Quintinquintina

can we use alternative colors like gray? – Halloran