Enable color regex debugging in perl on windows

Question

In some of my perl scripts, I've found it necessary to enable regex debugging while I work on them. I've seen that there is a color mode, but I can't seem to get color output. I've added use re 'debugcolor'; to my program, but it seems to behave no different than use re 'debug';.

I'm wondering if cmd.exe doesn't support the color output. Any documentation I've found just says that it will work on a terminal that supports it.

My question boils down to: Is there something else I need to do to enable color output? or, alternatively, What other terminal program could I use instead of cmd.exe?

Answer 1

re uses unix's termcap to provide color information. Try:

BEGIN {
   require Win32::Console::ANSI;
   $ENV{PERL_RE_COLORS} = "\e[1m\t\e[0m\t\e[7m\t\e[27m\t\e[4m\t\e[24m";
}

I get some colors from that. I don't know if they're the ones you are expecting.