Git Tricks

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Windows

Add a splash of color to your git output

For those who grew up with DOS, you'll probably recall the delight when it become possible to color the terminal characters. This feature has long since been disabled: as more and more people prefer are using the GUI rather than the command line to do their work. However, it is still possible to turn those lovely colors back on, if you are so inclined. To do this, simply add the following line in %SystemDrive%\config.sys (or config.nt for older versions of NT):

  DEVICE=%SystemRoot%\system32\ANSI.SYS

That is it. After you're done reboot and tell git to use colors. It will now highlight important information for you. To enable this for all "colorable" git commands, issue the following:

  git config --global color.branch "always"

This work is supported by NSF under Cooperative Agreement OAC-2030508 as part of the PATh Project. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF. Site built using CVSTrac.