Tree – How to Pipe Colored Tree Result to Less or More

lessmoretree

I get colored tree using tree -C but when I pipe it to less I get results like this:

tree public/ -C | less

enter image description here

How can I have colors in less in this case?

Best Answer

You want the -R switch to less.

From the less man page:

-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

So you need

tree -C public/ | less -R

Related Solutions

Colors – Can Less Retain Colored Output?

Use:

git diff --color=always | less -r

--color=always is there to tell git to output color codes even if the output is a pipe (not a tty). And -r is there to tell less to interpret those color codes and other escape sequences. Use -R for ANSI color codes only.

Follow Pipe with less – How to Follow a Pipe Using less

Pressing F or G makes less try to reach input EOF. If the input is a pipe, less hangs until the pipe is closed on the other side (and not "does nothing").

This can be worked around by saving the command output to a temporary file in the background, and then by using it as input for less:

command > /tmp/x &
less +F /tmp/x; kill %; rm /tmp/x

There is no option to do this in less only; however, I admit it would be useful.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Colors – Can Less Retain Colored Output?

Follow Pipe with less – How to Follow a Pipe Using less

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