Bash tips & tricks [ep. 3]: Colour your terminal!

This is the third epidose of a small series.

Description:

The days of monochrome green-on-black screens are over, in a remote shell  terminal you can have something fancier!

BAD:

GOOD:

Define a series of variables as shortcuts for color escape codes, there are plenty of examples on internet.

colblk='\033[0;30m' # Black - Regular
        colred='\033[0;31m' # Red
        colgrn='\033[0;32m' # Green
        colylw='\033[0;33m' # Yellow
        colblu='\033[0;34m' # Blue
        colpur='\033[0;35m' # Purple
        colcyn='\033[0;36m' # Cyan
        colwht='\033[0;37m' # White
        colbblk='\033[1;30m' # Black - Bold
        colbred='\033[1;31m' # Red
        colbgrn='\033[1;32m' # Green
        colbylw='\033[1;33m' # Yellow
        colbblu='\033[1;34m' # Blue
        colbpur='\033[1;35m' # Purple
        colbcyn='\033[1;36m' # Cyan
        colbwht='\033[1;37m' # White
        colublk='\033[4;30m' # Black - Underline
        colured='\033[4;31m' # Red
        colugrn='\033[4;32m' # Green
        coluylw='\033[4;33m' # Yellow
        colublu='\033[4;34m' # Blue
        colupur='\033[4;35m' # Purple
        colucyn='\033[4;36m' # Cyan
        coluwht='\033[4;37m' # White
        colbgblk='\033[40m'   # Black - Background
        colbgred='\033[41m'   # Red
        colbggrn='\033[42m'   # Green
        colbgylw='\033[43m'   # Yellow
        colbgblu='\033[44m'   # Blue
        colbgpur='\033[45m'   # Purple
        colbgcyn='\033[46m'   # Cyan
        colbgwht='\033[47m'   # White
        colrst='\033[0m'    # Text Reset

Use them whenever you need to highlight the output of a script, and eventually integrate them in a smart prompt (like the one I’ve blogged about sometimes ago).

The echo builtin command requires -e in order to make the colours work. When reading files, cat works, less requires -r. vi may work with some hacking, but it’s not worth to spend too much time, IMHO.