ANSI Escape Sequences Colors
ANSI Escape Sequences Colors
ANSI escape sequences are non-printed text that is interpreted to change the format of some text. These can be used to beautify terminal prompts, text, or anything else that understands ANSI escape sequences.
Add colors to the prompt
Sequences have different lengths. All sequences start with ESC (27 / hex 0x1B / oct 033), followed by a second byte in the range 0x40–0x5F (ASCII @A–Z[]^_). Colors must be followed by a m. The next part is the 1 preceding the actual color code. This indicates whether or not the color should be bold or not (0 for normal, 1 for bold).
To add colors to the shell prompt use the following export command syntax:
'\e[x;ym $PS1 \e[m'
Where,
- \e[ : Start color scheme.
- x;y : Color pair to use (x;y)
- $PS1 : Your shell prompt variable.
- \e[m : Stop color scheme.
To set a red color prompt, type the following command:
export PS1="\e[0;31m[\u@\h: \w]\$ \e[m "
You can also use tput command to set terminal and modify the prompt settings. For example, to display RED color prompt using a tput:
export PS1="\[$(tput setaf 1)\][\u@\h:\w] $ \[$(tput sgr0)\]"
Basic color codes listing
Black 0;30 Dark Gray 1;30
Red 0;31 Bold Red 1;31
Green 0;32 Bold Green 1;32
Yellow 0;33 Bold Yellow 1;33
Blue 0;34 Bold Blue 1;34
Purple 0;35 Bold Purple 1;35
Cyan 0;36 Bold Cyan 1;36
Light Gray 0;37 White 1;37
A list of handy tput command line options
- tput bold – Bold effect
- tput rev – Display inverse colors
- tput sgr0 – Reset everything
- tput setaf {CODE}– Set foreground color, see color {CODE} table below for more information.
- tput setab {CODE}– Set background color, see color {CODE} table below for more information.
Basic color codes for the tput command
| Color {code} | Color |
|---|---|
| 0 | Black |
| 1 | Red |
| 2 | Green |
| 3 | Yellow |
| 4 | Blue |
| 5 | Magenta |
| 6 | Cyan |
| 7 | White |
Color variables
export COLOR_NC='\e[0m' # No Color
export COLOR_WHITE='\e[1;37m'
export COLOR_BLACK='\e[0;30m'
export COLOR_BLUE='\e[0;34m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_BLUE='\e[1;34m'
export COLOR_GREEN='\e[0;32m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_GREEN='\e[1;32m'
export COLOR_CYAN='\e[0;36m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_CYAN='\e[1;36m'
export COLOR_RED='\e[0;31m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_RED='\e[1;31m'
export COLOR_PURPLE='\e[0;35m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_PURPLE='\e[1;35m'
export COLOR_BROWN='\e[0;33m'
export COLOR_YELLOW='\e[1;33m'
export COLOR_GRAY='\e[0;30m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_GRAY='\e[0;37m'