I am trying to print a text in the terminal using echo command.
I want to print the text in a red color. How can I do that?
If you prefer using echo instead of printf you need to make sure that you add the -e flag: #!/bin/bash # Set the color variable green='\033[0;32m' # Clear the color after that clear='\033[0m' echo -e "The script was executed ${green}successfully${clear}!"
You can use these ANSI escape codes:
Black 0;30 Dark Gray 1;30 Red 0;31 Light Red 1;31 Green 0;32 Light Green 1;32 Brown/Orange 0;33 Yellow 1;33 Blue 0;34 Light Blue 1;34 Purple 0;35 Light Purple 1;35 Cyan 0;36 Light Cyan 1;36 Light Gray 0;37 White 1;37
And then use them like this in your script:
# .---------- constant part! # vvvv vvvv-- the code from above RED='\033[0;31m' NC='\033[0m' # No Color printf "I ${RED}love${NC} Stack Overflow\n"
which prints love
in red.
From @james-lim's comment, if you are using the echo
command, be sure to use the -e flag to allow backslash escapes.
# Continued from above example echo -e "I ${RED}love${NC} Stack Overflow"
(don't add "\n"
when using echo
unless you want to add an additional empty line)
You can use the awesome tput
command (suggested in Ignacio's answer) to produce terminal control codes for all kinds of things.
Specific tput
sub-commands are discussed later.
Call tput
as part of a sequence of commands:
tput setaf 1; echo "this is red text"
Use ;
instead of &&
so if tput
errors the text still shows.
Another option is to use shell variables:
red=`tput setaf 1` green=`tput setaf 2` reset=`tput sgr0` echo "${red}red text ${green}green text${reset}"
tput
produces character sequences that are interpreted by the terminal as having a special meaning. They will not be shown themselves. Note that they can still be saved into files or processed as input by programs other than the terminal.
It may be more convenient to insert tput
's output directly into your echo
strings using command substitution:
echo "$(tput setaf 1)Red text $(tput setab 7)and white background$(tput sgr 0)"
The above command produces this on Ubuntu:
tput setab [1-7] # Set the background colour using ANSI escape tput setaf [1-7] # Set the foreground colour using ANSI escape
Colours are as follows:
Num Colour #define R G B 0 black COLOR_BLACK 0,0,0 1 red COLOR_RED 1,0,0 2 green COLOR_GREEN 0,1,0 3 yellow COLOR_YELLOW 1,1,0 4 blue COLOR_BLUE 0,0,1 5 magenta COLOR_MAGENTA 1,0,1 6 cyan COLOR_CYAN 0,1,1 7 white COLOR_WHITE 1,1,1
There are also non-ANSI versions of the colour setting functions (setb
instead of setab
, and setf
instead of setaf
) which use different numbers, not given here.
tput bold # Select bold mode tput dim # Select dim (half-bright) mode tput smul # Enable underline mode tput rmul # Disable underline mode tput rev # Turn on reverse video mode tput smso # Enter standout (bold) mode tput rmso # Exit standout mode
tput cup Y X # Move cursor to screen postion X,Y (top left is 0,0) tput cuf N # Move N characters forward (right) tput cub N # Move N characters back (left) tput cuu N # Move N lines up tput ll # Move to last line, first column (if no cup) tput sc # Save the cursor position tput rc # Restore the cursor position tput lines # Output the number of lines of the terminal tput cols # Output the number of columns of the terminal
tput ech N # Erase N characters tput clear # Clear screen and move the cursor to 0,0 tput el 1 # Clear to beginning of line tput el # Clear to end of line tput ed # Clear to end of screen tput ich N # Insert N characters (moves rest of line forward!) tput il N # Insert N lines
tput sgr0 # Reset text format to the terminal's default tput bel # Play a bell
With compiz wobbly windows, the bel
command makes the terminal wobble for a second to draw the user's attention.
tput
accepts scripts containing one command per line, which are executed in order before tput
exits.
Avoid temporary files by echoing a multiline string and piping it:
echo -e "setf 7\nsetb 1" | tput -S # set fg white and bg red
man 1 tput
man 5 terminfo
for the complete list of commands and more details on these options. (The corresponding tput
command is listed in the Cap-name
column of the huge table that starts at line 81.)If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
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