How can I see the colored log using tail or less?

Question

Reading a Rails log with vim, we can see a colored log. But when we use tail -f or less to watch the log, it isn't colorized anymore. Is there any way to see the colored log with tail or less or whatever?

Answer 1

pass -R to less for it to let colour escape sequences pass through, i.e.

less -R log/development.log

This should result in them being displayed in colour, assuming you are using the proper terminal type

Answer 2

tail -f log/development.log | ccze -A

You may need to install ccze

sudo apt-get install ccze

it works better, not ideal but works