A cat(1) clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration.
A cat(1) clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration.
Key Features • How To Use • Installation • Customization • Project goals, alternatives
### Syntax highlighting `bat` supports syntax highlighting for a large number of programming and markup languages:  ### Git integration `bat` communicates with `git` to show modifications with respect to the index (see left side bar):  ### Automatic paging `bat` can pipe its own output to `less` if the output is too large for one screen. ### File concatenation Oh.. you can also use it to concatenate files :wink:. Whenever `bat` detects a non-interactive terminal, it will fall back to printing the plain file contents. ## How to use Display a single file on the terminal ```bash > bat README.md ``` Display multiple files at once ```bash > bat src/*.rs ``` Read from stdin, determine the syntax automatically ```bash > curl -s https://sh.rustup.rs | bat ``` Read from stdin, specify the language explicitly ```bash > yaml2json .travis.yml | json_pp | bat -l json ``` As a replacement for `cat`: ```bash bat > note.md # quickly create a new file bat header.md content.md footer.md > document.md bat -n main.rs # show line numbers (only) bat f - g # output 'f', then stdin, then 'g'. ``` ## Installation ### On Ubuntu *... and other Debian-based Linux distributions.* Download the latest `.deb` package from the [release page](https://github.com/sharkdp/bat/releases) and install it via: ``` bash sudo dpkg -i bat_0.8.0_amd64.deb # adapt version number and architecture ``` ### On Arch Linux You can install [the `bat` package](https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/bat/) from the official sources: ```bash pacman -S bat ``` ### On Void Linux You can install `bat` via xbps-install: ``` xbps-install -S bat ``` ### On FreeBSD You can install a precompiled [`bat` package](https://www.freshports.org/textproc/bat) with pkg: ```bash pkg install bat ``` or build it on your own from the FreeBSD ports: ```bash cd /usr/ports/textproc/bat make install ``` ### Via nix You can install `bat` using the [nix package manager](https://nixos.org/nix): ```bash nix-env -i bat ``` ### On macOS You can install `bat` with [Homebrew](http://braumeister.org/formula/bat): ```bash brew install bat ``` ### On Windows You can download prebuilt binaries from the [Release page](https://github.com/sharkdp/bat/releases), or install it with [scoop](https://scoop.sh/): ```bash scoop install bat ``` [See below](#using-bat-on-windows) for notes. ### Via Docker There is a [Docker image](https://hub.docker.com/r/danlynn/bat/) that you can use to run `bat` in a container: ```bash docker pull danlynn/bat alias bat='docker run -it --rm -e BAT_THEME -e BAT_STYLE -e BAT_TABS -v "$(pwd):/myapp" danlynn/bat' ``` ### Via Ansible You can install `bat` with [Ansible](https://www.ansible.com/): ```bash # Install role on local machine ansible-galaxy install aeimer.install_bat ``` ```yaml --- # Playbook to install bat - host: all roles: - aeimer.install_bat ``` - [Ansible Galaxy](https://galaxy.ansible.com/aeimer/install_bat) - [GitHub](https://github.com/aeimer/ansible-install-bat) This should work with the following distributions: - Debian/Ubuntu - ARM (eg. Raspberry PI) - Arch Linux - Void Linux - FreeBSD - MacOS ### From binaries Check out the [Release page](https://github.com/sharkdp/bat/releases) for prebuilt versions of `bat` for many different architectures. Statically-linked binaries are available, just look for releases with `musl` in the name on the releases page. ### From source If you want to build `bat` from source, you need Rust 1.29 or higher. You can then use `cargo` to build everything: ```bash cargo install bat ``` You may have to install `cmake` and the `libz` development package (`libz-dev` or `libz-devel`) in order for the build to succeed. ## Customization ### Highlighting theme Use `bat --list-themes` to get a list of all available themes for syntax highlighting. To select the `TwoDark` theme, call `bat` with the `--theme=TwoDark` option or set the `BAT_THEME` environment variable to `TwoDark`. Use `export BAT_THEME="TwoDark"` in your shell's startup file to make the change permanent. If you want to preview the different themes on a custom file, you can use the following command (you need [`fzf`](https://github.com/junegunn/fzf) for this): ``` bash bat --list-themes | fzf --preview="bat --theme={} --color=always /path/to/file" ``` `bat` looks good on a dark background by default. However, if your terminal uses a light background, some themes will work better for you. For example, the `GitHub` theme is made for light backgrounds. You can also make your own theme by following the ['Adding new themes' section below](https://github.com/sharkdp/bat#adding-new-themes). ### Output style You can use the `--style` option to control the appearance of `bat`s output. You can use `--style=numbers,changes`, for example, to show only Git changes and line numbers but no grid and no file header. Use the `BAT_STYLE` environment variable to make these changes permanent. ### Adding new syntaxes / language definitions `bat` uses the excellent [`syntect`](https://github.com/trishume/syntect/) library for syntax highlighting. `syntect` can read any [Sublime Text `.sublime-syntax` file](https://www.sublimetext.com/docs/3/syntax.html) and theme. To add new syntax definitions, do the following. Create a folder with syntax definition files: ```bash BAT_CONFIG_DIR="$(bat cache --config-dir)" mkdir -p "$BAT_CONFIG_DIR/syntaxes" cd "$BAT_CONFIG_DIR/syntaxes" # Put new '.sublime-syntax' language definition files # in this folder (or its subdirectories), for example: git clone https://github.com/tellnobody1/sublime-purescript-syntax ``` Now use the following command to parse these files into a binary cache: ```bash bat cache --init ``` Finally, use `bat --list-languages` to check if the new languages are available. If you ever want to go back to the default settings, call: ```bash bat cache --clear ``` ### Adding new themes This works very similar to how we add new syntax definitions. First, create a folder with the new syntax highlighting themes: ```bash BAT_CONFIG_DIR="$(bat cache --config-dir)" mkdir -p "$BAT_CONFIG_DIR/themes" cd "$BAT_CONFIG_DIR/themes" # Download a theme in '.tmTheme' format, for example: git clone https://github.com/greggb/sublime-snazzy # Update the binary cache bat cache --init ``` Finally, use `bat --list-themes` to check if the new themes are available. ### Using a different pager `bat` uses the pager that is specified in the `PAGER` environment variable. If this variable is not set, `less` is used by default. If you want to use a different pager, you can either modify the `PAGER` variable or set the `BAT_PAGER` environment variable to override what is specified in `PAGER`. If you want to pass command-line arguments to the pager, you need to create a small shell script as a wrapper, for example ```bash #!/bin/bash less --tabs 4 -R "$@" ``` (put this in a file `~/.bat-pager.sh`, make it executable `chmod +x ~/.bat-pager.sh` and use `export BAT_PAGER="$HOME/.bat-pager.sh"` in your shells `rc` file) **Note**: By default, if the pager is set to `less`, `bat` will pass the following command line options to the pager: `-R`/`--RAW-CONTROL-CHARS`, `-F`/`--quit-if-one-screen` and `-X`/`--no-init`. The first (`-R`) is needed to interpret ANSI colors correctly. The second option (`-F`) instructs less to exit immediately if the output size is smaller than the vertical size of the terminal. This is convenient for small files because you do not have to press `q` to quit the pager. The third option (`-X`) is needed to fix a bug with the `--quit-if-one-screen` feature in old versions of `less`. Unfortunately, it also breaks mouse-wheel support in `less`. If you want to enable mouse-wheel scrolling, you can either pass just `-R` (as in the example above, this will disable the quit-if-one-screen feature), or you can use a recent version of `less` and pass `-RF` which will hopefully enable both quit-if-one-screen and mouse-wheel scrolling. If scrolling still doesn't work for you, you can try to pass the `-S` option in addition. ## Using `bat` on Windows `bat` mostly works out-of-the-box on Windows, but a few features may need extra configuration. ### Paging Windows only includes a very limited pager in the form of `more`. You can download a Windows binary for `less` [from its homepage](http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/download.html) or [through Chocolatey](https://chocolatey.org/packages/Less). To use it, place the binary in a directory in your `PATH` or [define an environment variable](#using-a-different-pager). ### Colours Windows 10 natively supports colours in both `conhost.exe` (Command Prompt) and PowerShell since [v1511](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_version_history#Version_1511_(November_Update)), as well as in newer versions of bash. On earlier versions of Windows, you can use [Cmder](http://cmder.net/), which includes [ConEmu](https://conemu.github.io/). **Note:** The Git and MSYS versions of `less` do not correctly interpret colours on Windows. If you don’t have any other pagers installed, you can disable paging entirely by passing `--paging=never` or by setting `BAT_PAGER` to an empty string. ### Cygwin `bat` on Windows does not natively support Cygwin's unix-style paths (`/cygdrive/*`). When passed an absolute cygwin path as an argument, `bat` will encounter the following error: `The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3)` This can be solved by creating a wrapper or adding the following function to your `.bash_profile` file: ```shell bat() { local index local args=("$@") for index in $(seq 0 ${#args[@]}) ; do case "${args[index]}" in -*) continue;; *) [ -e "${args[index]}" ] && args[index]="$(cygpath --windows "${args[index]}")";; esac done command bat "${args[@]}" } ``` ## Troubleshooting ### Terminals & colors `bat` handles terminals *with* and *without* truecolor support. However, the colors in the syntax highlighting themes are not optimized for 8-bit colors and it is therefore strongly recommended that you use a terminal with 24-bit truecolor support (`terminator`, `konsole`, `iTerm2`, ...). See [this article](https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728) for more details and a full list of terminals with truecolor support. Make sure that your truecolor terminal sets the `COLORTERM` variable to either `truecolor` or `24bit`. Otherwise, `bat` will not be able to determine whether or not 24-bit escape sequences are supported (and fall back to 8-bit colors). ### Line numbers and grid are hardly visible Please try a different theme (see `bat --list-themes` for a list). The `OneHalfDark` and `OneHalfLight` themes provide grid and line colors that are brighter. ## Development ```bash # Recursive clone to retrieve all submodules git clone --recursive https://github.com/sharkdp/bat # Build (debug version) cd bat cargo build # Run unit tests and integration tests cargo test # Install (release version) cargo install # Build a bat binary with modified syntaxes and themes bash assets/create.sh cargo install -f ``` ## Project goals and alternatives `bat` tries to achieve the following goals: - Provide beautiful, advanced syntax highlighting - Integrate with Git to show file modifications - Be a drop-in replacement for (POSIX) `cat` - Offer a user-friendly command-line interface There are a lot of alternatives, if you are looking for similar programs. See [this document](doc/alternatives.md) for a comparison.