Using colors with printf

Question

When written like this  it outputs text in blue   printf   e 1 34mThis is a blue text  e 0m    But I want to have format defined in printf   printf   -6s   This is text    Now I have tried several options how to add color  with no success   printf   -6s    e 1 34mThis is text e 0m    I even tried to add attribute code to format with no success  This does not work and I can t find anywhere an example  where colors are added to printf  which has defined format as in my case

User · Accepted Answer

You re mixing the parts together instead of separating them cleanly   printf   e 1 34m -6s e m   This is text    Basically  put the fixed stuff in the format and the variable stuff in the parameters

User · Answer

This is a little function that prints colored text using bash scripting  You may add as many styles as you want  and even print tabs and new lines      bin bash    prints colored text print style           if     2      info      then         COLOR  96m       elif     2      success      then         COLOR  92m       elif     2      warning      then         COLOR  93m       elif     2      danger      then         COLOR  91m       else  default color         COLOR  0m       fi      STARTCOLOR   e  COLOR       ENDCOLOR   e 0m        printf   STARTCOLOR b ENDCOLOR    1      print style  This is a green text    success   print style  This is a yellow text    warning   print style  This is a light blue with a  t tab    info   print style  This is a red text with a  n new line    danger   print style  This has no color

User · Answer

Rather than using archaic terminal codes  may I suggest the following alternative  Not only does it provide more readable code  but it also allows you to keep the color information separate from the format specifiers just as you originally intended   blue   tput setaf 4  normal   tput sgr0   printf   40s n     blue This text is blue  normal     See my answer HERE for additional colors

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This works for me   printf   b    e 1 34mThis is a blue text  e 0m    From printf 1      b     ARGUMENT as a string with     escapes interpreted  except that octal        escapes are of the form  0 or  0NNN

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This is a small program to get different color on terminal    include  lt stdio h gt    define KNRM    x1B 0m   define KRED    x1B 31m   define KGRN    x1B 32m   define KYEL    x1B 33m   define KBLU    x1B 34m   define KMAG    x1B 35m   define KCYN    x1B 36m   define KWHT    x1B 37m   int main         printf   sred n   KRED       printf   sgreen n   KGRN       printf   syellow n   KYEL       printf   sblue n   KBLU       printf   smagenta n   KMAG       printf   scyan n   KCYN       printf   swhite n   KWHT       printf   snormal n   KNRM        return 0

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man printf 1 has a note at the bottom      your shell may have its own version of printf       This question is tagged for bash  but if at all possible  I try to write scripts portable to any shell   dash is usually a good minimum baseline for portability - so the answer here works in bash  dash   amp  zsh   If a script works in those 3  it s most likely portable to just about anywhere   The latest implementation of printf in dash 1  doesn t colorize output given a  s format specifier with an ANSI escape character  e -- but  a format specifier  b combined with octal  033  equivalent to an ASCII ESC  will get the job done   Please comment for any outliers  but AFAIK  all shells have implemented printf to use the ASCII octal subset at a bare minimum   To the title of the question  Using colors with printf   the most portable way to set formatting is to combine the  b format specifier for printf  as referenced in an earlier answer from  Vlad  with an octal escape  033     portable-color sh    bin sh P   033   BLUE 34 printf  - gt  This is  s  -6s  s text  n   P 1   BLUE m   blue   P 0m  printf  - gt  This is  b  -6s  b text  n   P 1   BLUE m   blue   P 0m      Outputs       portable-color sh - gt  This is  033 1 34m blue    033 0m text - gt  This is  blue    text      and  blue  is blue in the second line   The  -6s format specifier from the OP is in the middle of the format string between the opening  amp  closing control character sequences       1  Ref  man dash Section  Builtins      printf      Format

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I use this c code for printing coloured shell output  The code is based on this post     General Formatting  define GEN FORMAT RESET                 0   define GEN FORMAT BRIGHT                1   define GEN FORMAT DIM                   2   define GEN FORMAT UNDERSCORE            3   define GEN FORMAT BLINK                 4   define GEN FORMAT REVERSE               5   define GEN FORMAT HIDDEN                6     Foreground Colors  define FOREGROUND COL BLACK             30   define FOREGROUND COL RED               31   define FOREGROUND COL GREEN             32   define FOREGROUND COL YELLOW            33   define FOREGROUND COL BLUE              34   define FOREGROUND COL MAGENTA           35   define FOREGROUND COL CYAN              36   define FOREGROUND COL WHITE             37     Background Colors  define BACKGROUND COL BLACK             40   define BACKGROUND COL RED               41   define BACKGROUND COL GREEN             42   define BACKGROUND COL YELLOW            43   define BACKGROUND COL BLUE              44   define BACKGROUND COL MAGENTA           45   define BACKGROUND COL CYAN              46   define BACKGROUND COL WHITE             47    define SHELL COLOR ESCAPE SEQ X    x1b  X m   define SHELL FORMAT RESET  ANSI COLOR ESCAPE SEQ GEN FORMAT RESET   int main int argc  char  argv            The long way     fputs SHELL COLOR ESCAPE SEQ GEN FORMAT DIM   FOREGROUND COL YELLOW   stdout       fputs  Text in gold n   stdout       fputs SHELL FORMAT RESET  stdout       fputs  Text in default color n   stdout          The short way     fputs SHELL COLOR ESCAPE SEQ GEN FORMAT DIM   FOREGROUND COL YELLOW  Text in gold n SHELL FORMAT RESET Text in default color n   stdout        return 0

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include  lt stdio h gt     fonts color  define FBLACK        033 30    define FRED          033 31    define FGREEN        033 32    define FYELLOW       033 33    define FBLUE         033 34    define FPURPLE       033 35    define D FGREEN      033 6    define FWHITE        033 7    define FCYAN         x1b 36m     background color  define BBLACK       40m   define BRED         41m   define BGREEN       42m   define BYELLOW      43m   define BBLUE        44m   define BPURPLE      45m   define D BGREEN     46m   define BWHITE       47m     end color  define NONE          033 0m   int main int argc  char  argv          printf D FGREEN BBLUE Change color  n NONE        return 0

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