https://github.com/daveewart/colordiff/pull/6 describes the use cases
considered for the previous change which is not quite the same as yours.

I'm often finding myself fielding conflicting patches from users with
different expectations about how colordiff should behave and that makes
progress tricky.  (There are situations where retaining colours through
pipes can be helpful: some 'while'/'for' loops I've been shown, for
example).

My general approach is, therefore, that unless a patch is clearly
changing a *fault*, I'd prefer to leave the default behaviour untouched.
With that in mind, if some colordiff users see alternative behaviours as
more correct, I'm open to including additional *options* in the code, so
long as the default behaviour of such options is 'no change to existing
behaviour'.  This should allow all users to configure the stock
colordiff to their own requirements without upsetting existing users who
like the existing behaviour.

This is quite a tricky balancing act and over the years I've had patches
from user A asking to changing the behaviour of pipes/TTY, followed by a
patch from user B *reverting those very same changes*! :-)  And, not
long afterwards a patch from user C with a patch similar to user A etc.
:-D

I see where you're getting at with your code: remove colour from
everything going to a pipe by default and enforce a pager: the current
release version allows colour to a pipe precisely so that it can be
piped to a pager.  I see your idea behind including a call to 'less' in
the code, but that in itself is a change of behaviour which might blow
up the face of some other long-support expected behaviour ...

Sorry to reject the patch and I totally understand your reasons:
hopefully the above explains why I can't simply consider your
contribution as a direct improvement.  Thanks again, Manuel; good luck
with colordiff :-)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1161826

Title:
  smarter handling of redirections and add --color option to override
  auto settings

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