Delta for diffs

[robinst]

I'm used to https://github.com/dandavison/delta for looking at diffs, and was wondering how to set it up with jj. I started with just setting the tool:

[ui.diff]
tool = "delta"

That results in this:

$ jj diff

Δ var/folders/jl/2lwh7cg533j2f03mnjk7vfv80000gn/T/jj-diff-plVolZ/left/docs/index.md ⟶   var/folders/jl/2lwh7cg533j2f03mnjk7vfv80000gn/T/jj-diff-plVolZ/right/docs/index.md
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

─────┐
• 1: │
─────┘
# Jujutsu—a version control system
# Jujutsu—a version control system test

## Welcome to `jj`'s documentation website!

Warning: Tool exited with exit status: 1 (run with --debug to see the exact invocation)

Note the very long left/right path. It can be improved like this:

[ui.diff]
tool = ["delta", "$left", "$right", "--file-transformation", "s|.*/jj-diff-[^/]*/[^/]*/||"]

$ jj diff

Δ docs/index.md ⟶   docs/index.md
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

─────┐
• 1: │
─────┘
# Jujutsu—a version control system
# Jujutsu—a version control system test

## Welcome to `jj`'s documentation website!

Warning: Tool exited with exit status: 1 (run with --debug to see the exact invocation)

What I haven't found is how to silence the warning at the end:

Warning: Tool exited with exit status: 1 (run with --debug to see the exact invocation)

Has anyone figured out how? Any other tips?

[robinst]

Shortly after posting this, I found the section about pagers in the docs, and this makes jj diff work nicely:

[ui]
pager = "delta"

[ui.diff]
format = "git"

I'll leave this post up because I couldn't find how to configure delta before (and I searched through discussions).

One problem that's left is with the above config, jj log -p doesn't use the pager, but that seems to be a known issue:

• FR: jj log respect the diff pager config #4142

[david-crespo]

Loving delta as my pager, but I was annoyed that jj log output would disappear on quit — I often use the log to find a change ID to plug into a subsequent command.

It turns out that by default, jj uses less -FRX as its pager, and the X means "leave the last view as output in the terminal when you quit". But delta, when it calls less internally, must not pass -X because it doesn't do that.

To use jj’s default less command while still using delta you can do:

pager = ["delta", "--pager", "less -FRX"]

I don’t love this either because when I look at a diff, I don’t usually want it to stick around. I only want this behavior when I’m looking at the log, and even then, I might not want it all the time. It turns out you can put the following in ~/.lesskey to make Q keep the output on quit while q does the regular quit:

Q toggle-option -!^Predraw-on-quit\nq

Then pager = "delta" works just fine. Note that for this to work on macOS, I had to brew install less to get a newer version than the super old one that comes built in.

[rwjblue]

Thanks for that @david-crespo! It got me thinking about the newish --scope features. I've just updated my config to only use delta as a pager for jj diff (I think this support landed in ~ 0.26). That looks like:

[[--scope]]
--when.commands = ["diff"]

[--scope.ui]
# https://github.com/jj-vcs/jj/blob/v0.25.0/docs/config.md#processing-contents-to-be-paged
pager = "delta"
# NOTE: this is required when using `delta` as a pager
diff.format = "git"

With this config, jj log contents stay on screen properly! 🎉

---

I was worried that this might break jj log -p formatting (because now log wouldn't be using delta as a pager), but apparently that doesn't work yet anyways (see #4142).

[salty-horse]

Should this play nice with flags like jj show --ignore-space-change? It's being ignored for me.

[david-crespo]

That is a git diff flag but as far as I can tell it is not a jj show flag. If that’s correct, I’m surprised it doesn’t error.

[salty-horse]

But jj diff --ignore-space-change also doesn't work with delta enabled using the above configuration. Both work with delta disabled.

[david-crespo]

Ah, I see. And here it is defined as an arg on both diff and show. Seems like a bug! Or maybe a necessary consequence of the :git diff formatter.

https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Ajj-vcs%2Fjj%20ignore_space_change&type=code

[salty-horse]

My mistake. I had diff-formatter = "delta" instead of ":git".

[JacobHayes]

Has anyone been able to get colorMoved[1] working well? It's generated by git, so guessing ui.diff.format = "git" would need to support it or use a different ui.diff.tool. Unfortunately, using delta for ui.diff.tool breaks delta's color theme detection.

1: detect moved code and highlight differently than just add/delete

[ansel1]

Using @BoscoDomingo latest settings, works great. But I was thinking if I added:

[ui]
conflict-marker-style = "git"

...delta would use it's special merge conflict handling, but it doesn't seem to work. Any idea why?

[scott2000]

Looks like they're expecting ++ at the start of the line, like git diff does when showing conflicts: https://github.com/dandavison/delta/blob/d5e0565cbfa47acde98d41d8777ace5d1bc4d690/src/handlers/merge_conflict.rs#L81

[shyun3]

Is there a way that jj can also produce these sorts of diffs on conflicts with the :git diff formatter?

[roteiro]

One issue that remains for me with using delta for looking at diffs (under Windows11 terminal) with the side-by-side option enabled is It always outputs the diff as if the terminal is 80 columns wide, even though my terminal is much wider, as described here: #6959.
Since v0.34.0 there is the $width variable, but I could not find a way to forward this to delta such that it uses the full terminal width.
Anybody has a solution for that problem? If I invoke delta directly, e.g.

delta --side-by-side file1 file2

it works as expected.

Got it working with:

[ui]
diff-formatter="delta"
[merge-tools.delta]
diff-args=["--side-by-side", "$left", "$right", "--width=$width"]

[PicoJr]

This PR #5257 fixes the warning Warning: Tool exited with exit status: 1 (run with --debug to see the exact invocation)

The changelog describing the new option is here: https://jj-vcs.github.io/jj/latest/changelog/#0260-2025-02-05

I configured it using:

[ui]
diff-formatter = "delta"

[merge-tools]
delta.diff-expected-exit-codes = [0, 1]

[noidilin]

The current setup that works for me:

• formatter set to delta for syntax highlighting to work
• stop using delta as pager
• pass computed width from jj to delta via $width

# allow for `jj diff` and `jj show` to clear output from terminal after pager closed
[[--scope]]
--when.commands = ["diff", "show"]

[--scope.ui]
# stop using delta as the pager for already-delta-formatted output
pager = ["less", "-FR"] # seems to be default (?)
# keep delta as external diff formatter to diffs real temp files/dir and keep syntax highlighting
diff-formatter = "delta"

# pass jj's computed terminal width via $width
[merge-tools.delta]
diff-args = ["--width=$width", "$left", "$right"]

[ansel1]

My current setup is simply:

[ui]
diff-formatter = "delta"

[merge-tools.delta]
diff-args = ["--side-by-side", "$left", "$right", "--width=$width"]
diff-expected-exit-codes = [0,1]

[aliases]
diffnav = ["diff", "--config=ui.diff-formatter=':git'", "--config=ui.pager='diffnav'"]

That seems to support jj diff, jj show and jj log -p. Performance is fine, even for large diffs. The diffnav alias lets me opt-in to diffnav for full diff browsing (a delta fork which has a file tree browser on the left).

[pablospe]

diffnav is awesome :) just a clarification, it is not a delta fork but built on top, you need to install both.

[norbertkeri]

How do you use delta as a merge tool? I thought delta is only a viewer, it can't resolve conflicts?

[ansel1]

I can't use it as a merge tool. But jj only has one configuration stanza for defining both diff and merge tools.

[kivikakk]

See #4690 (comment) for using --when. diff and show are good bets.

[mawkler]

To whom it may concern, I was able to proompt out this based on @ansel1's solution, which only does side-by-side if the window is wide enough:

[ui]
diff-formatter = "delta"

[merge-tools.delta]
program = "sh"
diff-args = ["-c", """
	if [ "$3" -gt 200 ]; then
		exec delta --side-by-side "$1" "$2" --width="$3"
	else
		exec delta --features=one-window "$1" "$2" --width="$3"
	fi
""", "_", "$left", "$right", "$width"]
diff-expected-exit-codes = [0, 1]

And here's the Nix home-manager version:

programs.jujutsu = {
  enable = true;
  settings = {
    ui.diff-formatter = "delta";
    merge-tools.delta = {
      program = "sh";
      diff-args = [
        "-c" # sh
        ''
          if [ "$3" -gt 200 ]; then
            exec delta --side-by-side "$1" "$2" --width="$3"
          else
            exec delta --features=one-window "$1" "$2" --width="$3"
          fi
        ''
        "_"
        "$left"
        "$right"
        "$width"
      ];
      # Fixes `tool exited with exit status: 1` warning
      diff-expected-exit-codes = [ 0 1 ];
    };
  };
};