Emacs shell or terminal escape characters in compilation buffer for rails tests

Question

I have my emacs set up so that colors in shell buffers work great. I also use the compile command to run individual test files in my ruby on rails environment But when I do that, the ror test functionality puts lots of shell/terminal escape characters into my compilation buffer. Is there any way to get that stuff to display in terminal colors?

BTW: I searched around and tried some things, but they didn't work.

Thanks!

There is a function called ansi-color-process-output. I would try to experiment with compilation mode filters (see compilation-filter-hook, etc) to see if it can be added there. Disclaimer: I do not use ruby. — Alex Vorobiev

nroose nroose · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-17T00:09:44

Here's what I have in my .emacs file now. It does not work until the end, but that's OK.

;; This stuff is to ansi-colorize the compilation buffer after a rails test so the terminal colors come through.
(define-derived-mode ansi-compilation-mode compilation-mode "ansi compilation"
  "Compilation mode that understands ansi colors."
  (require 'ansi-color)
  (toggle-read-only 0)
  (ansi-color-apply-on-region (point-min) (point-max)))

(defun colorize-compilation (one two)
  "ansi colorize the compilation buffer."
  (ansi-compilation-mode))

(setq compilation-finish-function 'colorize-compilation)

EDIT

I have switched from using the compile mode to using an async shell command. Here's the code:

(defun run-it ()
  "Run it on the current file."
  (interactive)
  (save-buffer)
  (shell-command
   (format "my_command %s &"
       (shell-quote-argument (buffer-name)))))
(global-set-key "\C-ct" 'run-it)

It saves the buffer first. The & makes it actually interactive so I can enter text in the buffer and the command will get that input. And it colors the command output on the fly, which my compile buffer was not doing.

Emacs shell or terminal escape characters in compilation buffer for rails tests

2 Answers