Filed under CLI | by Samuel Huckins | Date Posted: October 31, 2007 - 2:08 PM

I have been experimenting with adding more color to my bash prompts of late. I find it easier to read when the fields are in distinct colors. The problem I always have is remembering what those wonderfully obscure ANSI escape sequences represent. I always have to look at a table to remind myself that “light red” maps to “1;31″.

In an interesting guide to configuring your bash prompt that I have been going through, there was a script listed that makes this much easier:

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#!/bin/bash
#
# This file echoes a bunch of color codes to the
# terminal to demonstrate what is available. Each
# line is the color code of one forground color,
# out of 17 (default + 16 escapes), followed by a
# test use of that color on all nine background
# colors (default + 8 escapes).
#
# Taken from the Bash Prompt HOWTO:
# http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prompt-HOWTO/x329.html

T='gYw' # The test text

echo -e "\n 40m 41m 42m 43m\
44m 45m 46m 47m";

for FGs in ' m' ' 1m' ' 30m' '1;30m' ' 31m' '1;31m' ' 32m' \
'1;32m' ' 33m' '1;33m' ' 34m' '1;34m' ' 35m' '1;35m' \
' 36m' '1;36m' ' 37m' '1;37m';
do FG=${FGs// /}
echo -en " $FGs \033[$FG $T "
for BG in 40m 41m 42m 43m 44m 45m 46m 47m;
do echo -en "$EINS \033[$FG\033[$BG $T \033[0m";
done
echo;
done

This is from the Bash Prompt HOWTO, from a script by Daniel Crisman. It produces the following when run:

Just add an alias like