Hi I work in a mixed environment of mostly FreeBSD, GNU/Linux, and IRIX systems. FreeBSD has a color ls that will enter color mode if the -G option is specified or if the CLICOLOR environment variable is set. GNU has a color ls that will enter color mode if the --color option is specified. IRIX does not have a color ls mode.
In this environment, a simple shell alias such as "ls"="ls --color=auto" to automatically colorize ls output will not suffice, as non-GNU versions of ls do not understand the--color option. I prefer the FreeBSD approach, which is to use color mode if the CLICOLOR environment variable is set, and if the output is a recognized terminal type, similar to "--color=tty" in GNU ls. The attached patch adds support for the CLICOLOR environment variable to GNU ls. If a --color option is specified, this overrides the value of CLICOLOR. I have tested this patch in all permutations of CLICOLOR set and unset, --color specified and not specified, and output a TTY and not a TTY (by piping the output to GNU less). If you find this change useful, please let me know, and I will happily add any necessary additions to the documentation. PS: A case could also be made for automatic use of colorization if the LS_COLORS environment variable is set. I do not necessarily advocate this, however the attached patch could easily be used to accomplish this. Thanks -- Michael Wardle Adacel Technologies
ls-clicolor.patch
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