Piping Text to Select-String Shows ANSI Escape Sequences Instead of Color

[chrisbehanna]

Environment

Windows build number: [run `[Environment]::OSVersion` for powershell, or `ver` for cmd] Windows 10 Enterprise 10.0.19042.0
Windows Terminal version (if applicable): 1.6.10571.0

Any other software? PowerShell Core 7.1.2

Steps to reproduce

git ls-remote | Select-String git_gc

Expected behavior

A listing of the matching remote branches, with the string "git_gc" highlighted in color

Actual behavior

ff0f34e411366ca6a25b7e94ff2df0a1827e3bc8 refs/heads/build/←[7mgit_gc←[0m

[DHowett]

This is because git is disabling ANSI coloring shortly after it launches, even when it is redirected. This is a long-standing Cygwin/msys2 bug.

[chrisbehanna]

This is because git is disabling ANSI coloring shortly after it launches, even when it is redirected. This is a long-standing Cygwin/msys2 bug.

Then how does git log --graph --color --decorate apply color?

[DHowett]

So truthfully, it's a little more nuanced than that. There's a more detailed write-up here: #4921 (comment)

There's some combination of process entry/exit and mode transition that results in VT being disabled when it should be enabled when git or a subprocess exits after control has returned to something that required VT to be on. In the git log case, nobody appears to be exiting and reconfiguring the console.

[chrisbehanna]

Thanks for the additional detail. For now, I'll just use Select-String -NoEmphasis when running git ls-remote to look for particular branches.