Outputting Text with Colours using Bash and Other Scripting Languages

Output text in colours

These messages work within any text printed to a console. They can therefore be used in other scripts you create (php, ruby, python, perl, etc), not just bash.(*)

In general, languages will only parse special characters (like \033 if you use double-quotes).

Messages in uppercase are given as examples only.

• red text

  $ echo -e "\033[31mERROR:\033[00m"
  

• yellow text

  $ echo -e "\033[33mWARNING:\033[00m"
  

• bold yellow text

  $ echo -e "\033[1;33mWARNING:\033[00m"
  

• bold green text

  $ echo -e "\033[1;32mSUCCESS\033[00m"
  

References:

• bash prompt howto

• bash color codes (broken link)

() When using languages other than bash, make sure you use the appropriate function that accepts *escape sequences**. For example, in ruby, you need to output text using puts otherwise the color codes won't be correctly parsed. This is equivalent to using -e in bash.