Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook - Third Edition

Printing a colored output

A script can use escape sequences to produce colored text on the terminal.

Colors for text are represented by color codes, including, reset = 0, black = 30, red = 31, green = 32, yellow = 33, blue = 34, magenta = 35, cyan = 36, and white = 37.

To print colored text, enter the following command:

echo -e "\e[1;31m This is red text \e[0m"

Here, \e[1;31m is the escape string to set the color to red and \e[0m resets the color back. Replace 31 with the required color code.

For a colored background, reset = 0, black = 40, red = 41, green = 42, yellow = 43, blue = 44, magenta = 45, cyan = 46, and white=47, are the commonly used color codes.

To print a colored background, enter the following command:

echo -e "\e[1;42m ...