How to get rid of ESC[ characters when using git diff on Mac OS X Mavericks?

Question

Since I installed OS X Mavericks, the result of the command git diff is rendering ESC[xxx characters like this:

ESC[1mdiff --git a/console/org.linkedin.glu.console-webapp/decorate-grails-methods-plugin/plugin.xml b/console/org.linkedin.glu.console-webapp/decorate-grails-methods-plugin/plugin.xmlESC[m
ESC[1mindex 3b65cf1..0ca5d7e 100644ESC[m
ESC[1m--- a/console/org.linkedin.glu.console-webapp/decorate-grails-methods-plugin/plugin.xmlESC[m
ESC[1m+++ b/console/org.linkedin.glu.console-webapp/decorate-grails-methods-plugin/plugin.xmlESC[m
ESC[36m@@ -15,14 +15,14 @@ESC[m ESC[mThe purpose of this plugin is to decorate various grails methods.ESC[m

This used to render properly prior to installing Mavericks. I have no clue what is different so any help in troubleshooting would be much appreciated.

Note that the pager used is less since when I hit h I get the following:

             SUMMARY OF LESS COMMANDS

Commands marked with * may be preceded by a number, N.
Notes in parentheses indicate the behavior if N is given.

Answer 1

This works:

git config --global core.pager "less -r"

Answer 2

Try "less -R" (big "R")

This worked for me:

git config core.pager 'less -R'

Example:

Without "-R" you just get raw ESC control codes:

With "-R" you get the actual color:

"less -R" vs. "less -r"

-R (big R) seems to be the safer version of -r (small r). So that's why I prefer the big R version.

Quote from man less:

-r or --raw-control-chars
Causes "raw" control characters to be displayed. The default is to display control characters using the caret notation; for example, a control-A (octal 001) is displayed as "^A". Warning: when the -r option is used, less cannot keep track of the actual appearance of the screen (since this depends on how the screen responds to each type of control character). Thus, various display problems may result, such as long lines being split in the wrong place.

-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. ANSI "color" escape sequences are sequences of the form:

ESC [ ... m

where the "..." is zero or more color specification characters For the purpose of keeping track of screen appearance, ANSI color escape sequences are assumed to not move the cursor. You can make less think that characters other than "m" can end ANSI color escape sequences by setting the environment variable LESSANSIENDCHARS to the list of characters which can end a color escape sequence. And you can make less think that characters other than the standard ones may appear between the ESC and the m by setting the environment variable LESSANSIMIDCHARS to the list of characters which can appear.

Answer 3

The global pager configuration option within git, just sends the output stream to the more or less commands. You can get rid of the escape characters within this output by setting the global configuration option to either:

git config --global core.pager "more -R"

To continue using more as your pager or

git config --global core.pager "less -R"

To continue using less as your pager

Answer 4

You change use the option -R Repaint the screen to remove all the buffered input.

export LESS="$LESS -R"

Answer 5

Another alternative is to eliminate git's "colorizing" of output by doing something like

$ git config --global color.ui false

See git help config for details.

Reference: unix.stackexchange: How to colorize output of git?

Answer 6

I had faced similar issues. My Output for LESS was: LESS=-iMPM--?f%f--:--.?lb lines %lt-%lb.?L of %L.?pB (%pB%). LESSOPEN=||/usr/bin/lesspipe.sh %s

Tried executing below, but it did not resolve the issue- git config --global color.ui auto true

The issue was resolved using - export LESS=eFRX