I'm writing a Bash script that prints some text to the screen:
echo "Some Text"
Can I format the text? I would like to make it bold.
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4 Answers
The most compatible way of doing this is using tput to discover the right sequences to send to the terminal:
bold=$(tput bold)
normal=$(tput sgr0)
then you can use the variables $bold and $normal to format things:
echo "this is ${bold}bold${normal} but this isn't"
gives
this is bold but this isn't
Note that normal will turn off all formatting (so if you have other formatting - such as colours - that will be disabled, too).
23 Comments
JamesRat
That's pretty nifty. If I understand correctly, This is the same as inserting the escapes, but it would work in other terminals (not VT100).
jayem
If you have the need to underline text, you could add a variable. Notice, the backticks are being removed from comment formatting. Use the same format in the answer. UNDERLINE=
tput smul
Drew Noakes
tput is a great command with lots of commands for many different tasks.
Gael
This tput command is much better than the escape characters. You do not need "-e" with echo and it works with the command read:
read -p "this is ${bold}bold${normal} but this isn't"
psmears
@DamonHill: Ah OK - look closely, it's not
$(bold) it's ${bold}, i.e. curly brackets rather than round ones :) |
In order to apply a style on your string, you can use a command like:
echo -e '\033[1mYOUR_STRING\033[0m'
Explanation:
- echo -e - The
-eoption means that escaped (backslashed) strings will be interpreted - \033 - escaped sequence represents beginning/ending of the style
- lowercase m - indicates the end of the sequence
- 1 - Bold attribute (see below for more)
- [0m - resets all attributes, colors, formatting, etc.
The possible integers are:
- 0 - Normal Style
- 1 - Bold
- 2 - Dim
- 3 - Italic
- 4 - Underlined
- 5 - Blinking
- 7 - Reverse
- 8 - Invisible
All this is per ANSI but is implemented by absolute majority of terminal emulators out there. An alternative way to style output is to rely on terminfo through use of the tput command. The latter will most likely output escape sequences which are ANSI anyway, unless you're at a really obscure and/or exotic type of terminal.
8 Comments
Jeremy
Good explanation. Was looking around for what functionality
[0m offers and this explains it wellJeremy
Though it should be
\033[0m
Tabernero
3 - italic, at least in konsole
Dark Star1
One wishes Strikethrough was supported on Ubuntu and some of the other popular platforms.
yong321
@WoodrowShigeru man terminfo
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I assume bash is running on a vt100-compatible terminal in which the user did not explicitly turn off the support for formatting.
First, turn on support for special characters in echo, using -e option. Later, use ansi escape sequence ESC[1m, like:
echo -e "\033[1mSome Text"
More on ansi escape sequences for example here: ascii-table.com/ansi-escape-sequences-vt-100.php
6 Comments
JamesRat
Thanks. I found some other lists of escape sequences, but the one you linked to is very extensive!
mems
Don't forget to stop bold formatting at the end of the string:
echo -e "\033[1mSome Text\033[0m" else the following lines of your terminal will be in bold too
David
This solution works even with PHP-CLI, that's an advantage against other solution.
Felipe Alvarez
if you have trouble remembering
\033 you can use \e like echo -e "\e[1msome text\e[0m"
user
The octal escape sequence is allowed in JS (JavaScript)
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In theory like so:
# BOLD
$ echo -e "\033[1mThis is a BOLD line\033[0m"
This is a BOLD line
# Using tput
tput bold
echo "This" #BOLD
tput sgr0 #Reset text attributes to normal without clear.
echo "This" #NORMAL
# UNDERLINE
$ echo -e "\033[4mThis is a underlined line.\033[0m"
This is a underlined line.
But in practice it may be interpreted as "high intensity" color instead.
(source: http://unstableme.blogspot.com/2008/01/ansi-escape-sequences-for-writing-text.html)
