kitty-diff
================================================================================
*A fast side-by-side diff tool with syntax highlighting and images*
.. highlight:: sh
Major Features
-----------------
.. container:: major-features
* Displays diffs side-by-side in the kitty terminal
* Does syntax highlighting of the displayed diffs, asynchronously, for
maximum speed
* Displays images as well as text diffs, even over SSH
* Does recursive directory diffing
.. figure:: ../screenshots/diff.png
:alt: Screenshot, showing a sample diff
:align: center
:width: 100%
Screenshot, showing a sample diff
Installation
---------------
Simply :ref:`install kitty <quickstart>`. You also need to have either the `git
<https://git-scm.com/>`__ program or the :program:`diff` program installed.
Additionally, for syntax highlighting to work, `pygments
<https://pygments.org/>`__ must be installed (note that pygments is included in
the official kitty binary builds).
Usage
--------
In the kitty terminal, run::
kitty +kitten diff file1 file2
to see the diff between :file:`file1` and :file:`file2`.
Create an alias in your shell's startup file to shorten the command, for
example:
.. code-block:: sh
alias d="kitty +kitten diff"
Now all you need to do to diff two files is::
d file1 file2
You can also pass directories instead of files to see the recursive diff of the
directory contents.
Keyboard controls
----------------------
========================= ===========================
Action Shortcut
========================= ===========================
Quit :kbd:`Q`, :kbd:`Ctrl+C`, :kbd:`Esc`
Scroll line up :kbd:`K`, :kbd:`Up`
Scroll line down :kbd:`J`, :kbd:`Down`
Scroll page up :kbd:`PgUp`
Scroll page down :kbd:`PgDn`
Scroll to top :kbd:`Home`
Scroll to bottom :kbd:`End`
Scroll to next page :kbd:`Space`, :kbd:`PgDn`
Scroll to previous page :kbd:`PgUp`
Scroll to next change :kbd:`N`
Scroll to previous change :kbd:`P`
Increase lines of context :kbd:`+`
Decrease lines of context :kbd:`-`
All lines of context :kbd:`A`
Restore default context :kbd:`=`
Search forwards :kbd:`/`
Search backwards :kbd:`?`
Clear search :kbd:`Esc`
Scroll to next match :kbd:`>`, :kbd:`.`
Scroll to previous match :kbd:`<`, :kbd:`,`
========================= ===========================
Integrating with git
-----------------------
Add the following to :file:`~/.gitconfig`:
.. code-block:: ini
[diff]
tool = kitty
guitool = kitty.gui
[difftool]
prompt = false
trustExitCode = true
[difftool "kitty"]
cmd = kitty +kitten diff $LOCAL $REMOTE
[difftool "kitty.gui"]
cmd = kitty kitty +kitten diff $LOCAL $REMOTE
Now to use kitty-diff to view git diffs, you can simply do::
git difftool --no-symlinks --dir-diff
Once again, creating an alias for this command is useful.
Why does this work only in kitty?
----------------------------------------
The diff kitten makes use of various features that are :doc:`kitty only
</protocol-extensions>`, such as the :doc:`kitty graphics protocol
</graphics-protocol>`, the :doc:`extended keyboard protocol
</keyboard-protocol>`, etc. It also leverages terminal program infrastructure
I created for all of kitty's other kittens to reduce the amount of code needed
(the entire implementation is under 2000 lines of code).
And fundamentally, it's kitty only because I wrote it for myself, and I am
highly unlikely to use any other terminals :)
Configuration
------------------------
You can configure the colors used, keyboard shortcuts, the diff implementation,
the default lines of context, etc. by creating a :file:`diff.conf` file in your
:ref:`kitty config folder <confloc>`. See below for the supported configuration
directives.
.. include:: /generated/conf-kitten-diff.rst
.. include:: /generated/cli-kitten-diff.rst
Sample diff.conf
-----------------
You can download a sample :file:`diff.conf` file with all default settings and
comments describing each setting by clicking: :download:`sample diff.conf
</generated/conf/diff.conf>`.
Generated by dwww version 1.15 on Fri Jun 21 08:09:51 CEST 2024.