Color support detection problem in git bash on windows

[mlarcher]

I recenlty update msysgit (windows version of git) from version 1.9.5 to 2.5.3. This updated the terminal it brings along (git-bash) to "GNU bash, version 4.3.42(2)-release (x86_64-pc-msys)".
I since then lost all colors from Gulp output.

Using --color as a parameter brings color back.
I assume something have changed on the way git-bash exposes its color support, and Gulp detection is not finding out the correct answer anymore.
I don't know how color support detection works in Gulp, but I can say that $TERM is exposing "xterm-256", which should be enough to assume color support.

[phated]

@sindresorhus this might be something that chalk needs to know about?

[sindresorhus]

That should be enough, yes. You can see the check here: https://github.com/chalk/supports-color/blob/9434c93918301a6b47faa01999482adfbf1b715c/index.js#L61

[Qix-]

@mlarcher would you mind doing

$ npm i supports-color
$ node
> var s = require('supports-color');
> console.log(require('util').inspect(s));
> console.log(process.env.TERM.length, process.env.TERM);

in the updated console and posting the output here? Just want to eliminate all of the trivial possibilities.

And can you confirm it's the same version of gulp being used before/after the terminal emulator update?

[mlarcher]

@qix: I confirm I only updated git, gulp didn't change version.
Here's the output you requested:

$ node
> var s = require('supports-color');
> console.log(require('util').inspect(s));
{ level: 1, hasBasic: true, has256: false, has16m: false }
> console.log(process.env.TERM.length, process.env.TERM);
14 'xterm-256color'

has256: false seems odd, I must say...

[Qix-]

Hmm interesting. I'll take a look at the 256 though chalk as of now doesn't even support 256 colors. That should be enough for gulp to be outputting color via chalk...

@sindresorhus what do you think?

[sindresorhus]

Probably related to: nodejs/node#3006

[mlarcher]

@sindresorhus, it may be, but the issue in that thread seems to be due to changes in nodeJS 4, while I'm still using node 0.12 and triggered the issue by updating only git bash. Both could have the same underlying cause, though.

[phated]

@mlarcher @sindresorhus what was the outcome for this issue?

[mlarcher]

@phated It's still ongoing afaik. Probably not on top of priorities, though.
For my part I still use --color after each gulp command for now :|

[MobiusHorizons]

I can confirm that this is an issue.

[Qix-]

This comment mentions the same issue. This is a node problem, not a Chalk problem.

What appears to be happening is supports-color, the module we wrote to check to see if the terminal supports color, is seeing that isatty() is indicating that the terminal session is not actually a terminal session, but a pipe or something. That's Node's fault.

From there, chalk is told not to use colors, hence not getting any colored output.

Unfortunately there isn't much we can do other than to advise using --color or the environment variable FORCE_COLOR to run what you need inside of MSys or Cygwin (not sure if this affects Cygwin but it very well might).

Once the aforementioned Node issue is resolved and an update is pushed, you'll see colors back in your respective terminal automatically.

[phated]

@Qix- what would happen if we set process.env.FORCE_COLOR = true for every instance inside the CLI?