ANSI Coloring in Compilation Mode
ansi-escape, compilationmode, emacs, shell, text-coloring
Solution
There's already a function for applying color to comint buffers. You simply need to enable it on compilation buffers:
(require 'ansi-color)
(defun colorize-compilation-buffer ()
(toggle-read-only)
(ansi-color-apply-on-region compilation-filter-start (point))
(toggle-read-only))
(add-hook 'compilation-filter-hook 'colorize-compilation-buffer)
Color writing programs should check the `TERM` environment variable and the terminfo database to check if the terminal supports color. In practice, a lot of programs ignore this and rely on a user setting. Emacs will set the compilation terminal type to `dumb` by default but this can be overriden by setting the `compilation-environment` variable.
Update: Note that in Emacs 24.5 the two calls to `(toggle-read-only)` in the code above are not needed.
Problem
Have anyone added support for ansi-color in compilation-mode Emacs? If so what property/attribute does the color-writing program have to check for in order to make sure its active terminal supports ANSI-escape coloring.