Changing output colour in Bash

February 02, 2019 / bash, linux, terminal

There is a large number of ANSI escape codes to make your terminal do ‘unusual’ things. Some basic colours for example are the following:

Colour	Code	Colour	Code
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

Usage example:

    RED='\033[0;31m'
    NC='\033[0m' # No Colour
    printf "This is an ${RED}ERROR${NC}\n"

which prints the word ‘ERROR’ in red and the rest of the phrase in the default colour.

If you are using the echo command, remember to use the -e flag to make echo obey the backslash escape sequences: echo -e "${RED}This is an ERROR${NC}"

Changing output colour in Bash

Usage example:

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