Linux Terminal Color

Bash tips:Colors and Formating(ANSI/VT100 Control sequences)

The ANSI/VT100 terminals and terminal emulators are not just able to display black and white text ; they can display colors and formatted texts thanks to escape sequences. Those sequences are composed of the Escape character (often represented by ”^[” or ”<Esc>”) followed by some other characters: ”<Esc>[FormatCodem”.

In Bash, the <Esc> character can be obtained with the following syntaxes:

• \e
• \033
• \x1B

Examples:

Code (Bash)Preview

echo -e "\e[31mHello World\e[0m"

echo -e "\033[31mHello\e[0m World"

NOTE¹: The -e option of the echo command enable the parsing of the escape sequences.

NOTE²: The ”\e[0m” sequence removes all attributes (formatting and colors). It can be a good idea to add it at the end of each colored text. ;)

NOTE³: The examples in this page are in Bash but the ANSI/VT100 escape sequences can be used in every programming languages.

 Formating

Here are the most commonly supported control sequences for formatting text. Their support depends on the used terminal (see the compatibility list).

Set

CodeDescriptionExamplePreview1Bold/Bright

echo -e "Normal \e[1mBold"

2Dim

echo -e "Normal \e[2mDim"

4Underlined

echo -e "Normal \e[4mUnderlined"

5Blink ¹⁾

echo -e "Normal \e[5mBlink"

7Reverse (invert the foreground and background colors)

echo -e "Normal \e[7minverted"

8Hidden (usefull for passwords)

echo -e "Normal \e[8mHidden"

Reset

CodeDescriptionExamplePreview0Reset all attributes

echo -e "\e[0mNormal Text"

21Reset bold/bright

echo -e "Normal \e[1mBold \e[21mNormal"

22Reset dim

echo -e "Normal \e[2mDim \e[22mNormal"

24Reset underlined

echo -e "Normal \e[4mUnderlined \e[24mNormal"

25Reset blink

echo -e "Normal \e[5mBlink \e[25mNormal"

27Reset reverse

echo -e "Normal \e[7minverted \e[27mNormal"

28Reset hidden

echo -e "Normal \e[8mHidden \e[28mNormal"

8/16 Colors

The following colors works with most terminals and terminals emulators ²⁾, see the compatibility list for more informations.

NOTE: The colors can vary depending of the terminal configuration.

Foreground (text)

CodeColorExamplePreview39Default foreground color

echo -e "Default \e[39mDefault"

30Black

echo -e "Default \e[30mBlack"

31Red

echo -e "Default \e[31mRed"

32Green

echo -e "Default \e[32mGreen"

33Yellow

echo -e "Default \e[33mYellow"

34Blue

echo -e "Default \e[34mBlue"

35Magenta

echo -e "Default \e[35mMagenta"

36Cyan

echo -e "Default \e[36mCyan"

37Light gray

echo -e "Default \e[37mLight gray"

90Dark gray

echo -e "Default \e[90mDark gray"

91Light red

echo -e "Default \e[91mLight red"

92Light green

echo -e "Default \e[92mLight green"

93Light yellow

echo -e "Default \e[93mLight yellow"

94Light blue

echo -e "Default \e[94mLight blue"

95Light magenta

echo -e "Default \e[95mLight magenta"

96Light cyan

echo -e "Default \e[96mLight cyan"

97White

echo -e "Default \e[97mWhite"

Backgroud

CodeColorExamplePreview49Default background color

echo -e "Default \e[49mDefault"

40Black

echo -e "Default \e[40mBlack"

41Red

echo -e "Default \e[41mRed"

42Green

echo -e "Default \e[42mGreen"

43Yellow

echo -e "Default \e[43mYellow"

44Blue

echo -e "Default \e[44mBlue"

45Magenta

echo -e "Default \e[45mMagenta"

46Cyan

echo -e "Default \e[46mCyan"

47Light gray

echo -e "Default \e[47mLight gray"

100Dark gray

echo -e "Default \e[100mDark gray"

101Light red

echo -e "Default \e[101mLight red"

102Light green

echo -e "Default \e[102mLight green"

103Light yellow

echo -e "Default \e[103mLight yellow"

104Light blue

echo -e "Default \e[104mLight blue"

105Light magenta

echo -e "Default \e[105mLight magenta"

106Light cyan

echo -e "Default \e[106mLight cyan"

107White

echo -e "Default \e[107mWhite"

88/256 Colors

Some terminals (see the compatibility list) can support 88 or 256 colors. Here are the control sequences that permit you to use them.

NOTE¹: The colors number 256 is only supported by vte (GNOME Terminal, XFCE4 Terminal, Nautilus Terminal, Terminator,…).

NOTE²: The 88-colors terminals (like rxvt) does not have the same color map that the 256-colors terminals. For showing the 88-colors terminals color map, run the ”256-colors.sh” script in a 88-colors terminal.

Frontgroud(text)

For using one of the 256 colors on the foreground (text color), the control sequence is ”<Esc>[38;5;ColorNumberm” where ColorNumber is one of the following colors:

Examples:

Code (Bash)Preview

echo -e "\e[38;5;82mHello \e[38;5;198mWorld"

for i in {16..21} {21..16} ; do echo -en "\e[38;5;${i}m#\e[0m" ; done ; echo

Backgroud

For using one of the 256 colors on the background, the control sequence is ”<Esc>[48;5;ColorNumberm” where ColorNumber is one of the following colors:

Examples:

Code (Bash)Preview

echo -e "\e[40;38;5;82m Hello \e[30;48;5;82m World \e[0m"

for i in {16..21} {21..16} ; do echo -en "\e[48;5;${i}m \e[0m" ; done ; echo

Attributes combination

Terminals allow attribute combinations. The attributes must be separated by a semicolon (”;”).

Examples:

DescriptionCode (Bash)PreviewBold + Underlined

echo -e "\e[1;4mBold and Underlined"

Bold + Red forground + Green background

echo -e "\e[1;31;42m Yes it is awful \e[0m"

Terminals compatibility

TerminalFormattingColorsCommentBoldDimUnderlinedBlinkinvertHidden81688256aTermok-ok-ok-ok~--Lighter background instead of blink.Eterm~-ok-ok-ok~-okLighter color instead of Bold. Lighter background instead of blink. Can overline a text with the ”^[[6m” sequence.GNOME Terminalokokok-okokokok-okStrikeout with the ”^[[9m” sequence.Guakeokokok-okokokok-okStrikeout with the ”^[[9m” sequence.Konsoleok-okokok-okok-ok Nautilus Terminalokokok-okokokok-okStrikeout with the ”^[[9m” sequence.rxvtok-ok~ok-okokok-If the background is not set to the default color, Blink make it lighter instead of blinking. Support of italic text with the ”^[[3m” sequence.Terminatorokokok-okokokok-okStrikeout with the ”^[[9m” sequence.Tildaok-ok-ok-okok--Underline instead of Dim. Convert 256-colors in 16-colors.XFCE4 Terminalokokok-okokokok-okStrikeout with the ”^[[9m” sequence.XTermok-okokokokokok-ok xvtok-ok-ok----- Linux TTYok---ok-ok~--Specials colors instead of Dim and Underlined. Lighter background instead of Blink, Bug with 88/256 colors.VTE Terminal ³⁾okokok-okokokok-okStrikeout with the ”^[[9m” sequence.

Notations used in the table:

• ”ok”: Supported by the terminal.
• ”~”: Supported in a special way by the terminal.
• ”-”: Not supported at all by the terminal.

Attributes combination

The following shell script displays a lot of possible combination of the attributes (but not all, because it uses only one formatting attribute at a time).

#!/bin/bash # This program is free software. It comes without any warranty, to# the extent permitted by applicable law. You can redistribute it# and/or modify it under the terms of the Do What The Fuck You Want#Backgroundfor clbg in {40..47} {100..107} 49 ; do#Foregroundfor clfg in {30..37} {90..97} 39 ; do#Formattingfor attr in 0 1 2 4 5 7 ; do#Print the resultecho -en "\e[${attr};${clbg};${clfg}m ^[${attr};${clbg};${clfg}m \e[0m"doneecho #Newlinedonedone exit 0

The following script display the 256 colors available on some terminals and terminals emulators like XTerm and GNOME Terminal.

#!/bin/bash # This program is free software. It comes without any warranty, to# the extent permitted by applicable law. You can redistribute it# and/or modify it under the terms of the Do What The Fuck You Want for fgbg in 38 48 ; do #Foreground/Backgroundfor color in {0..256} ; do #Colors#Display the colorecho -en "\e[${fgbg};5;${color}m ${color}\t\e[0m"#Display 10 colors per linesif [ $((($color + 1) % 10)) == 0 ] ; thenecho #New linefidoneecho #New linedone exit 0

Links

• Linux console codes manual (''man console_codes'')
• XTerm Control Sequences
• Compilation of all escape sequences
• ANSI escape code (Wikipedia)

¹⁾ Does not work with most of the terminal emulators, works in the tty and XTerm.

²⁾ Some terminals supports only the first 8 colors (30..37 and 40..47), and some others does not support any color at all.

³⁾ GTK Widget used in GNOME Terminal, Nautilus Terminal, XFCE4 Terminal…