Make Your Shell Scripts Pop: Master ANSI Color Codes for Stunning Terminal Output

Shell scripts are often limited to plain black‑and‑white text, but you can make the output visually striking by using ANSI escape sequences with echo -e to control colors, background, and text effects. echo -e "\033[44;37;5m So Cool! \033[0m" This command prints the phrase "So Cool!" with a blue background, white foreground, and a blinking cursor. The -e option enables interpretation of backslash‑escaped characters, \033 starts an escape sequence, and m terminates it. The numbers 44;37;5 set background blue (44), foreground white (37), and blinking (5). Changing these numbers produces different color combinations.

Color Code Meanings

0   Reset all attributes to default
1   Bold
2   Dim (half‑bright)
4   Underline
5   Blink
7   Reverse video
22  Normal intensity
24  Underline off
25  Blink off
27  Reverse video off
30  Black foreground
31  Red foreground
32  Green foreground
33  Yellow foreground
34  Blue foreground
35  Magenta foreground
36  Cyan foreground
37  White foreground
38  Underline on default foreground
39  Underline off default foreground
40  Black background
41  Red background
42  Green background
43  Yellow background
44  Blue background
45  Magenta background
46  Cyan background
47  White background
49  Default background

By mixing foreground (30‑37) and background (40‑47) codes, you can create a wide range of text styles.

Combining Color Codes

echo -e "\033[31m Red text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[34m Yellow text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[41;33m Red background, Yellow text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[41;37m Red background, White text \033[0m"

Foreground Color Examples (30‑37)

echo -e "\033[30m Black text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[31m Red text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[32m Green text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[33m Yellow text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[34m Blue text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[35m Magenta text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[36m Cyan text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[37m White text \033[0m"

Background Color Examples (40‑47)

echo -e "\033[40;37m Black background, White text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[41;37m Red background, White text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[42;37m Green background, White text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[43;37m Yellow background, White text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[44;37m Blue background, White text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[45;37m Magenta background, White text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[46;37m Cyan background, White text \033[0m"
echo -e "\033[47;30m White background, Black text \033[0m"

By adjusting the numeric codes, you can create countless color combinations to make your shell script output more readable and visually appealing.