Code (Bash)
Preview
echo -e "\e[31mHello World\e[0m"
Hello World echo -e "\033[31mHello\e[0m World"
Hello World 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" | Hello World |
echo -e "\033[31mHello\e[0m World" | Hello 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.
Here are the most commonly supported control sequences for formatting text. Their support depends on the used terminal (see the compatibility list).
Code | Description | Example | Preview |
1 | Bold/Bright | echo -e "Normal \e[1mBold" |  Normal Bold |
2 | Dim | echo -e "Normal \e[2mDim" |  Normal Dim |
4 | Underlined | echo -e "Normal \e[4mUnderlined" |  Normal Underlined |
5 | Blink 1) | echo -e "Normal \e[5mBlink" |  Normal Blink |
7 | Reverse (invert the foreground and background colors) | echo -e "Normal \e[7minverted" |  Normal inverted |
8 | Hidden (useful for passwords) | echo -e "Normal \e[8mHidden" |  Normal Hidden |
Code | Description | Example | Preview |
0 | Reset all attributes | echo -e "\e[0mNormal Text" |  Normal Text |
21 | Reset bold/bright | echo -e "Normal \e[1mBold \e[21mNormal" |  Normal Bold Normal |
22 | Reset dim | echo -e "Normal \e[2mDim \e[22mNormal" |  Normal Dim Normal |
24 | Reset underlined | echo -e "Normal \e[4mUnderlined \e[24mNormal" |  Normal Underlined Normal |
25 | Reset blink | echo -e "Normal \e[5mBlink \e[25mNormal" |  Normal Blink Normal |
27 | Reset reverse | echo -e "Normal \e[7minverted \e[27mNormal" |  Normal inverted Normal |
28 | Reset hidden | echo -e "Normal \e[8mHidden \e[28mNormal" |  Normal Hidden Normal |
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.
Code | Color | Example | Preview |
39 | Default foreground color | echo -e "Default \e[39mDefault" |  Default Default |
30 | Black | echo -e "Default \e[30mBlack" |  Default Black |
31 | Red | echo -e "Default \e[31mRed" |  Default Red |
32 | Green | echo -e "Default \e[32mGreen" |  Default Green |
33 | Yellow | echo -e "Default \e[33mYellow" |  Default Yellow |
34 | Blue | echo -e "Default \e[34mBlue" |  Default Blue |
35 | Magenta | echo -e "Default \e[35mMagenta" |  Default Magenta |
36 | Cyan | echo -e "Default \e[36mCyan" |  Default Cyan |
37 | Light gray | echo -e "Default \e[37mLight gray" |  Default Light gray |
90 | Dark gray | echo -e "Default \e[90mDark gray" |  Default Dark gray |
91 | Light red | echo -e "Default \e[91mLight red" |  Default Light red |
92 | Light green | echo -e "Default \e[92mLight green" |  Default Light green |
93 | Light yellow | echo -e "Default \e[93mLight yellow" |  Default Light yellow |
94 | Light blue | echo -e "Default \e[94mLight blue" |  Default Light blue |
95 | Light magenta | echo -e "Default \e[95mLight magenta" |  Default Light magenta |
96 | Light cyan | echo -e "Default \e[96mLight cyan" |  Default Light cyan |
97 | White | echo -e "Default \e[97mWhite" |  Default White |
Code | Color | Example | Preview |
49 | Default background color | echo -e "Default \e[49mDefault" |  Default Default |
40 | Black | echo -e "Default \e[40mBlack" |  Default Black |
41 | Red | echo -e "Default \e[41mRed" |  Default Red |
42 | Green | echo -e "Default \e[42mGreen" |  Default Green |
43 | Yellow | echo -e "Default \e[43mYellow" |  Default Yellow |
44 | Blue | echo -e "Default \e[44mBlue" |  Default Blue |
45 | Magenta | echo -e "Default \e[45mMagenta" |  Default Magenta |
46 | Cyan | echo -e "Default \e[46mCyan" |  Default Cyan |
47 | Light gray | echo -e "Default \e[47mLight gray" |  Default Light gray |
100 | Dark gray | echo -e "Default \e[100mDark gray" |  Default Dark gray |
101 | Light red | echo -e "Default \e[101mLight red" |  Default Light red |
102 | Light green | echo -e "Default \e[102mLight green" |  Default Light green |
103 | Light yellow | echo -e "Default \e[103mLight yellow" |  Default Light yellow |
104 | Light blue | echo -e "Default \e[104mLight blue" |  Default Light blue |
105 | Light magenta | echo -e "Default \e[105mLight magenta" |  Default Light magenta |
106 | Light cyan | echo -e "Default \e[106mLight cyan" |  Default Light cyan |
107 | White | echo -e "Default \e[107mWhite" |  Default White |
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.
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:
XTerm 256 color list (foreground) Examples:
Code (Bash) | Preview |
echo -e "\e[38;5;82mHello \e[38;5;198mWorld" |  Hello World |
for i in {16..21} {21..16} ; do echo -en "\e[38;5;${i}m#\e[0m" ; done ; echo |  Blue gradiant |
For using one of the 256 colors on the background, the control sequence is “<Esc>[48;5;ColorNumberm” where ColorNumber is one of the following colors:
XTerm 256 color list (background) Examples:
Code (Bash) | Preview |
echo -e "\e[40;38;5;82m Hello \e[30;48;5;82m World \e[0m" |  Hello World |
for i in {16..21} {21..16} ; do echo -en "\e[48;5;${i}m \e[0m" ; done ; echo |  Blue gradiant |
Terminals allow attribute combinations. The attributes must be separated by a semicolon (“;”).
Examples:
Description | Code (Bash) | Preview |
Bold + Underlined | echo -e "\e[1;4mBold and Underlined" |  Bold and Underlined |
Bold + Red forground + Green background | echo -e "\e[1;31;42m Yes it is awful \e[0m" |  Yes it is awful |
Terminal | Formatting | Colors | Comment | ||||||||
Bold | Dim | Underlined | Blink | invert | Hidden | 8 | 16 | 88 | 256 | ||
ok | - | ok | - | ok | - | ok | ~ | - | - | Lighter background instead of blink. | |
~ | - | ok | - | ok | - | ok | ~ | - | ok | Lighter color instead of Bold. Lighter background instead of blink. Can overline a text with the “^[[6m” sequence. | |
ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | - | ok | Strikeout with the “^[[9m” sequence. | |
ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | - | ok | Strikeout with the “^[[9m” sequence. | |
ok | - | ok | ok | ok | - | ok | ok | - | ok |
| |
ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | - | ok | Strikeout with the “^[[9m” sequence. | |
ok | - | ok | ~ | ok | - | ok | ok | ok | - | 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. | |
ok | ok | ok | - | ok | ok | ok | ok | - | ok | Strikeout with the “^[[9m” sequence. | |
ok | - | ok | ok | ok | - | ok | ok | - | - | Underline instead of Dim. Convert 256-colors in 16-colors. | |
ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | - | ok | Strikeout with the “^[[9m” sequence. | |
ok | - | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | - | ok |
| |
xvt | ok | - | ok | - | ok | - | - | - | - | - |
|
Linux TTY | ok | - | - | - | ok | - | ok | ~ | - | - | Specials colors instead of Dim and Underlined. Lighter background instead of Blink, Bug with 88/256 colors. |
ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | ok | - | ok | Strikeout 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.
Screenshot of the color_and_formatting.sh script 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
# To Public License, Version 2, as published by Sam Hocevar. See
# http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/COPYING for more details.
#Background
for clbg in {40..47} {100..107} 49 ; do
#Foreground
for clfg in {30..37} {90..97} 39 ; do
#Formatting
for attr in 0 1 2 4 5 7 ; do
#Print the result
echo -en "\e[${attr};${clbg};${clfg}m ^[${attr};${clbg};${clfg}m \e[0m"
done
echo #Newline
done
done
exit 0
Screenshot of the 256-colors.sh script 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
# To Public License, Version 2, as published by Sam Hocevar. See
# http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/COPYING for more details.
for fgbg in 38 48 ; do # Foreground / Background
for color in {0..255} ; do # Colors
# Display the color
printf "\e[${fgbg};5;%sm %3s \e[0m" $color $color
# Display 6 colors per lines
if [ $((($color + 1) % 6)) == 4 ] ; then
echo # New line
fi
done
echo # New line
done
exit 0