Tab output format without a color

[cristaloleg]

Your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I started writing a blog post regarding my golangci-lint setup and decided to try the tab format, which looks cool and I like it.

I tried the following config and was upset because my lint.txt is full of cryptic symbols related to the colouring (see screenshot)

output:
  format: tab:lint.txt

Describe the solution you'd like.

Add a new format which outputs results in the tab format but without colours, so no cryptic symbols appear in the output file.

Describe alternatives you've considered.

Keep using line-number or using a personal fork without colours. This can be also sed-ed but I don't like this fix.

Additional context.

I'm happy to make a PR, I'm just not sure which fix would be better: add a new tab-no-colour format or add a separate config field no-color: <boolean> or just join https://no-color.org/ movement.

[ldez]

Hello,

I created PR #3729.

I don't introduce a no-color option because I prefer to have a consistent and homogenous option.
Today we already have colored-line-number and line-number.

Also, you can already use the env var NO_COLOR to disable the color.
This option is related to github.com/fatih/color, and there are other existing conditions.

[ldez]

I missed one existing option because this option was not documented:

--color never

I will document that.

And I think we will have to review this global approach to color and output.

[ldez]

In fact, the option color only works as a CLI flag: --color never

The config file version doesn't work, and I don't know why, probably a historical reason.

[ldez]

I think I know why: the option has been probably introduced to handle colors inside logs but as this option is modifying the global var color.NoColor it also impacts the report outputs which use the same library.
The setup of the logs is handled before the configuration file parsing, this explains why the config file option doesn't work.

So this option cannot be documented in the reference file, and will always work only with CLI flags like the --verbose option.

[cristaloleg]

Well, my feature is completely done in #3729. A global no-color parameter was just 1 way to achieve my goal.