Using --color on with prove doesn't force color when sent to a non-tty

[scottchiefbaker]

I like to keep a tab open that runs my unit tests repeatedly. When I've made changes I can switch to that tab and see the current results of all my tests. Coloring green or red makes it really easy to know if I've broken something. I tried running prove inside of a continuous watch like so:

watch --color 'prove --color t/*.t'

It appears that prove attempts to be smart and not output ANSI if the target isn't a TTY. This can also be shown with:

prove --color t/*.t > /tmp/output.txt

[Leont]

Yeah, it's only willing to do color when in console mode. You can force that by setting HARNESS_OPTIONS=fTAP-Formatter-Console

[scottchiefbaker]

A --color force option would be very handy here. I guarantee I won't remember that command above :)

[Leont]

To be honest this area is a mess, you can' get color without getting the console updates (if you're also using multiple jobs). Fixing this to work properly is a "patches welcome" kind of thing.