Term::ANSIColor(3pm)

📦

version 5.42.3 · 8 versions

💖 NAME 💖

Term::ANSIColor — color screen output using ANSI escape sequences. (Yep, this is the Term::ANSIColor(3pm) page from the Perl Programmers Reference Guide, and it's about to be your new bestie 🫶)

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

okay so here's literally the entire vibe in one block, no cap — every single line is a real thing you can do:

use Term::ANSIColor;
print color('bold blue');
print "This text is bold blue.\n";
print color('reset');
print "This text is normal.\n";
print colored("Yellow on magenta.", 'yellow on_magenta'), "\n";
print "This text is normal.\n";
print colored(['yellow on_magenta'], 'Yellow on magenta.', "\n");
print colored(['red on_bright_yellow'], 'Red on bright yellow.', "\n");
print colored(['bright_red on_black'], 'Bright red on black.', "\n");
print "\n";

# Map escape sequences back to color names.
use Term::ANSIColor 1.04 qw(uncolor);
my @names = uncolor('01;31');
print join(q{ }, @names), "\n";

# Strip all color escape sequences.
use Term::ANSIColor 2.01 qw(colorstrip);
print colorstrip("\e[1mThis is bold\e[0m"), "\n";

# Determine whether a color is valid.
use Term::ANSIColor 2.02 qw(colorvalid);
my $valid = colorvalid('blue bold', 'on_magenta');
print "Color string is ", $valid ? "valid\n" : "invalid\n";

# Create new aliases for colors.
use Term::ANSIColor 4.00 qw(coloralias);
coloralias('alert', 'red');
print "Alert is ", coloralias('alert'), "\n";
print colored("This is in red.", 'alert'), "\n";

use Term::ANSIColor qw(:constants);
print BOLD, BLUE, "This text is in bold blue.\n", RESET;

use Term::ANSIColor qw(:constants);
{
    local $Term::ANSIColor::AUTORESET = 1;
    print BOLD BLUE "This text is in bold blue.\n";
    print "This text is normal.\n";
}

use Term::ANSIColor 2.00 qw(:pushpop);
print PUSHCOLOR RED ON_GREEN "This text is red on green.\n";
print PUSHCOLOR BRIGHT_BLUE "This text is bright blue on green.\n";
print RESET BRIGHT_BLUE "This text is just bright blue.\n";
print POPCOLOR "Back to red on green.\n";
print LOCALCOLOR GREEN ON_BLUE "This text is green on blue.\n";
print "This text is red on green.\n";
{
    local $Term::ANSIColor::AUTOLOCAL = 1;
    print ON_BLUE "This text is red on blue.\n";
    print "This text is red on green.\n";
}
print POPCOLOR "Back to whatever we started as.\n";

every single one of those gets explained below, keep scrolling bestie 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So this module has two interfaces — one through color() and colored(), and the other through constants. It also offers the utility functions uncolor(), colorstrip(), colorvalid(), and coloralias() — but heads up, those have to be explicitly imported to be used (peep "SYNOPSIS" above 👀).

If you're using Term::ANSIColor in a console command, consider supporting the CLICOLOR standard. See "Supporting CLICOLOR" for more info, iykyk.

See "COMPATIBILITY" for the versions of Term::ANSIColor that introduced particular features, and the versions of Perl that included them.

🌈 Supported Colors 🎨

Terminal emulators that support color divide into four types, bestie: ones that support only eight colors, ones that support sixteen, ones that support 256, and ones that support 24-bit color. This module provides the ANSI escape codes for all of them — iconic behavior honestly. These colors are referred to as ANSI colors 0 through 7 (normal), 8 through 15 (16-color), 16 through 255 (256-color), and true color (called direct-color by xterm).

Unfortunately 😭, interpretation of colors 0 through 7 often depends on whether the emulator supports eight colors or sixteen colors. Emulators that only support eight colors (such as the Linux console) will display colors 0 through 7 with normal brightness and ignore colors 8 through 15, treating them the same as white. Emulators that support 16 colors, such as gnome-terminal, normally display colors 0 through 7 as dim or darker versions and colors 8 through 15 as normal brightness. On such emulators, the "normal" white (color 7) usually is shown as pale grey, requiring bright white (15) to be used to get a real white color. Bright black usually is a dark grey color, although some terminals display it as pure black. Some sixteen-color terminal emulators also treat normal yellow (color 3) as orange or brown, and bright yellow (color 11) as yellow. the drama of it all 💀

Following the normal convention of sixteen-color emulators, this module provides a pair of attributes for each color. For every normal color (0 through 7), the corresponding bright color (8 through 15) is obtained by prepending the string "bright_" to the normal color name. For example, "red" is color 1 and "bright_red" is color 9. The same applies for background colors: "on_red" is the normal color and "on_bright_red" is the bright color. Capitalize these strings for the constant interface — lowercase for functions, uppercase for constants, that's the rule 💅

There is unfortunately no way to know whether the current emulator supports more than eight colors, which makes the choice of colors difficult. The most conservative choice is to use only the regular colors, which are at least displayed on all emulators. However, they will appear dark in sixteen-color terminal emulators, including most common emulators in UNIX X environments. If you know the display is one of those emulators, you may wish to use the bright variants instead. Even better: offer the user a way to configure the colors for a given application to fit their terminal emulator. king behavior 👑 that's the main character move.

For 256-color emulators, this module additionally provides "ansi0" through "ansi15", which are the same as colors 0 through 15 in sixteen-color emulators but use the 256-color escape syntax, "grey0" through "grey23" ranging from nearly black to nearly white, and a set of RGB colors. The RGB colors are of the form "rgbRGB" where R, G, and B are numbers from 0 to 5 giving the intensity of red, green, and blue. The grey and RGB colors are also available as "ansi16" through "ansi255" if you want simple names for all 256 colors. "on_" variants of all of these colors are also provided. Fair warning though: these colors may be ignored completely on non-256-color terminals, or may be misinterpreted and produce random behavior. Additional attributes such as blink, italic, or bold may not work with the 256-color palette. not me finding that out the hard way 😭

For true color emulators, this module supports attributes of the form "rNNNgNNNbNNN" and "on_rNNNgNNNbNNN" for all values of NNN between 0 and 255. These represent foreground and background colors, respectively, with the RGB values given by the NNN numbers. Same warning as above: these colors may be ignored completely on non-true-color terminals, or may be misinterpreted and produce random behavior. 💀

🧵 Function Interface 🪡

The function interface uses attribute strings to describe the colors and text attributes to assign to text. The recognized non-color attributes are clear, reset, bold, dark, faint, italic, underline, underscore, blink, reverse, and concealed. Clear and reset (reset to default attributes) are equivalent, dark and faint (dim and saturated) are equivalent, and underline and underscore are equivalent — so just use whichever is the most intuitive to you 💖

Note that not all attributes are supported by all terminal types, and some terminals may not support any of these sequences. dark and faint, italic, blink, and concealed in particular are frequently not implemented. sad but true 😔

The recognized normal foreground color attributes (colors 0 to 7) are:

black  red  green  yellow  blue  magenta  cyan  white

The corresponding bright foreground color attributes (colors 8 to 15) are:

bright_black  bright_red      bright_green  bright_yellow
bright_blue   bright_magenta  bright_cyan   bright_white

The recognized normal background color attributes (colors 0 to 7) are:

on_black  on_red      on_green  on yellow
on_blue   on_magenta  on_cyan   on_white

(and yes bestie, that on yellow with a space is exactly how it's written in the original — we report, we don't fix 💅)

The recognized bright background color attributes (colors 8 to 15) are:

on_bright_black  on_bright_red      on_bright_green  on_bright_yellow
on_bright_blue   on_bright_magenta  on_bright_cyan   on_bright_white

For 256-color terminals, the recognized foreground colors are:

ansi0 .. ansi255
grey0 .. grey23

plus "rgbRGB" for R, G, and B values from 0 to 5, such as "rgb000" or "rgb515". Similarly, the recognized background colors are:

on_ansi0 .. on_ansi255
on_grey0 .. on_grey23

plus "on_rgbRGB" for R, G, and B values from 0 to 5.

For true color terminals, the recognized foreground colors are "rRRRgGGGbBBB" for RRR, GGG, and BBB values between 0 and 255. Similarly, the recognized background colors are "on_rRRRgGGGbBBB" for RRR, GGG, and BBB values between 0 and 255.

For any of the above listed attributes, case is not significant — go off, lowercase girlies 🌸

Attributes, once set, last until they are unset (by printing the attribute "clear" or "reset"). Be careful to actually do this, or otherwise your attribute will last after your script is done running, and people get very annoyed at having their prompt and typing changed to weird colors. do not be that person 🙈

🌟 `color(ATTR[, ATTR ...])`

color() takes any number of strings as arguments and considers them to be space-separated lists of attributes. It then forms and returns the escape sequence to set those attributes. It does not print it out, just returns it — so you'll have to print it yourself if you want to. That's on purpose, bestie: this way you can save it as a string, pass it to something else, send it to a file handle, or do anything else with it that you might care to. color() throws an exception if given an invalid attribute. ✨

🎀 `colored(STRING, ATTR[, ATTR ...])`

🎀 `colored(ATTR-REF, STRING[, STRING...])`

As an aid in resetting colors, colored() takes a scalar as the first argument and any number of attribute strings as the second argument, and returns the scalar wrapped in escape codes so that the attributes will be set as requested before the string and reset to normal after the string. Alternately, you can pass a reference to an array as the first argument, and then the contents of that array will be taken as attributes and color codes, and the remainder of the arguments as text to colorize. two modes, both slay 🫶

Normally, colored() just puts attribute codes at the beginning and end of the string, but if you set $Term::ANSIColor::EACHLINE to some string, that string will be considered the line delimiter, and the attribute will be set at the beginning of each line of the passed string and reset at the end of each line. This is often desirable if the output contains newlines and you're using background colors, since a background color that persists across a newline is often interpreted by the terminal as providing the default background color for the next line. Programs like pagers can also be confused by attributes that span lines. Normally you'll want to set $Term::ANSIColor::EACHLINE to "\n" to use this feature.

⚠️ okay bestie, listen up on this one: particularly consider setting $Term::ANSIColor::EACHLINE if you're interleaving output to standard output and standard error, and you're not flushing standard output (like, via autoflush() or setting $|). If you don't, the code that resets the color may end up just... sitting in the standard output buffer instead of going to the display 😭 and then your standard error output shows up in the wrong color. Not the vibe. Fix it.

🧽 `uncolor(ESCAPE)`

uncolor() does the exact opposite translation of color() — it takes escape sequences and turns them into a list of strings matching the attributes those sequences are setting. So like, reverse-engineering your fancy output back into plain attribute names 💅

One thing though: uncolor() will never return "ansi16" through "ansi255". It lowkey prefers the "grey" and "rgb" names instead (and same energy for "on_ansi16" through "on_ansi255"). Just how it rolls ✨

✂️ `colorstrip(STRING[, STRING ...])`

colorstrip() rips out all the color escape sequences from the strings you hand it, and gives you back the cleaned-up strings — separately in array context, or all joined together in scalar context. And no, it does not touch your original arguments, they stay exactly as they were 🫶 (very respectful of boundaries, honestly).

✅ `colorvalid(ATTR[, ATTR ...])`

colorvalid() takes attribute strings the same way color() does, and it's basically a vibe check: returns true if all the attributes are known, false otherwise. That's it. That's the whole function. Slay 🎀

🏷️ `coloralias(ALIAS[, ATTR ...])`

Okay so this one's the glow-up function. If ATTR is specified, it gets interpreted as a list of space-separated strings naming attributes or existing aliases. And in that case, coloralias() sets up an alias called ALIAS for the set of attributes given by ATTR 🦋

From that point forward, ALIAS can be passed into color(), colored(), and colorvalid(), and it'll mean exactly the same thing as that sequence of attributes you gave in ATTR. One super cute use for this? Giving more meaningful names to the 256-color RGB colors, because rgb511 does not exactly scream "cute pink" to me 💀

Heads up: only ASCII alphanumerics, ".", "_", and "-" are allowed in alias names. That's the whole guest list.

If ATTR includes aliases, those aliases get expanded at definition time and their values are used to define the new alias. Which means: if you define alias A in terms of another alias B, and then later redefine alias B, the value of alias A will not change. It's locked in, no cap 🔒

If ATTR is not specified, coloralias() returns the standard attribute or attributes that ALIAS is aliased to, if any — or undef if ALIAS doesn't exist. And if it's aliased to multiple attributes, the return value will be a single string with the attributes separated by spaces.

This is literally the same facility used by the ANSI_COLORS_ALIASES environment variable (peep "ENVIRONMENT" below), except you can use it at runtime, not just when the module is loaded ⭐

Later invocations of coloralias() with the same ALIAS will override earlier aliases. And there is no way to remove an alias. Gone but never forgotten, ig 🙈

Aliases have no effect on the return value of uncolor().

🚨 WARNING: Aliases are global and affect all callers in the same process. There is no way to set an alias limited to a particular block of code or a particular object. It's giving main character energy whether you want it to or not 👑

🎀 Constant Interface

Alternately (iconic word), if you import ":constants", you can use these constants directly:

  CLEAR           RESET             BOLD            DARK
  FAINT           ITALIC            UNDERLINE       UNDERSCORE
  BLINK           REVERSE           CONCEALED

  BLACK           RED               GREEN           YELLOW
  BLUE            MAGENTA           CYAN            WHITE
  BRIGHT_BLACK    BRIGHT_RED        BRIGHT_GREEN    BRIGHT_YELLOW
  BRIGHT_BLUE     BRIGHT_MAGENTA    BRIGHT_CYAN     BRIGHT_WHITE

  ON_BLACK        ON_RED            ON_GREEN        ON_YELLOW
  ON_BLUE         ON_MAGENTA        ON_CYAN         ON_WHITE
  ON_BRIGHT_BLACK ON_BRIGHT_RED     ON_BRIGHT_GREEN ON_BRIGHT_YELLOW
  ON_BRIGHT_BLUE  ON_BRIGHT_MAGENTA ON_BRIGHT_CYAN  ON_BRIGHT_WHITE

These are the same as color('attribute'), and they're for you if you'd rather type:

print BOLD BLUE ON_WHITE "Text", RESET, "\n";

instead of:

print colored ("Text", 'bold blue on_white'), "\n";

(And note that the newline is kept separate to avoid confusing the terminal as described above, since a background color is being used. Be nice to your terminal, it's doing its best 💖)

If you import ":constants256", you get these constants directly instead:

  ANSI0 .. ANSI255
  GREY0 .. GREY23

  RGBXYZ (for X, Y, and Z values from 0 to 5, like RGB000 or RGB515)

  ON_ANSI0 .. ON_ANSI255
  ON_GREY0 .. ON_GREY23

  ON_RGBXYZ (for X, Y, and Z values from 0 to 5)

Note that ":constants256" does not include the other constants, so if you want to mix both, you need to include ":constants" as well. You may want to explicitly import at least "RESET", like this:

use Term::ANSIColor 4.00 qw(RESET :constants256);

True color and aliases are not supported by the constant interface. That's just the rules 💅

When you're using the constants, if you don't want to have to remember to add the ", RESET" at the end of every single print line, you can set $Term::ANSIColor::AUTORESET to a true value. Then, the display mode will automatically be reset if there's no comma after the constant. In other words, with that variable set:

print BOLD BLUE "Text\n";

will reset the display mode afterward, whereas:

print BOLD, BLUE, "Text\n";

will not. Comma is the whole difference, bestie. If you're using background colors, you'll probably want to either use say() (in newer versions of Perl) or print the newline with a separate print statement, to avoid confusing the terminal 🌸

If $Term::ANSIColor::AUTOLOCAL is set (see below), it takes precedence over $Term::ANSIColor::AUTORESET, and the latter is ignored. Sorry AUTORESET, you had your moment 😭

So here's the tea on the two interfaces. The subroutine interface has the advantage over the constants interface in that only two subroutines are exported into your namespace, versus thirty-eight in the constants interface — plus aliases and true color attributes are supported. On the flip side, the constants interface has the advantage of better compile time error checking, since misspelled names of colors or attributes in calls to color() and colored() won't be caught until runtime, whereas misspelled names of constants will be caught at compile time 🔥

So: pollute your namespace with almost two dozen subroutines that you may not even use that often, or risk a silly bug by mistyping an attribute. Your choice, TMTOWTDI after all 🦋

🥞 The Color Stack

You can import ":pushpop" and maintain a stack of colors using PUSHCOLOR, POPCOLOR, and LOCALCOLOR ✨

PUSHCOLOR takes the attribute string that starts its argument and pushes it onto a stack of attributes.
POPCOLOR removes the top of the stack and restores the previous attributes set by the argument of a prior PUSHCOLOR.
LOCALCOLOR surrounds its argument in a PUSHCOLOR and POPCOLOR so that the color resets afterward.

It's giving stack data structure but make it fashion 👑

If $Term::ANSIColor::AUTOLOCAL is set, each sequence of color constants will be implicitly preceded by LOCALCOLOR. In other words, this:

{
    local $Term::ANSIColor::AUTOLOCAL = 1;
    print BLUE "Text\n";
}

is equivalent to:

print LOCALCOLOR BLUE "Text\n";

If $Term::ANSIColor::AUTOLOCAL is set, it takes precedence over $Term::ANSIColor::AUTORESET, and the latter is ignored. (Yeah, AUTORESET is getting ignored again. It's fine. It's fine.)

🚨 When using PUSHCOLOR, POPCOLOR, and LOCALCOLOR, it's particularly important to not put commas between the constants.

print PUSHCOLOR BLUE "Text\n";

will correctly push BLUE onto the top of the stack.

print PUSHCOLOR, BLUE, "Text\n";    # wrong!

will not, and a subsequent pop won't restore the correct attributes 💀 PUSHCOLOR pushes the attributes set by its argument, which is normally a string of color constants. It can't ask the terminal what the current attributes are. It's not psychic, bestie, no matter how much we wish it were 🙈

🌈 Supporting CLICOLOR

<https://bixense.com/clicolors/> proposes a standard for enabling and disabling color output from console commands using two environment variables, CLICOLOR and CLICOLOR_FORCE.

Term::ANSIColor cannot automatically support this standard, since the correct action depends on where the output is going, and Term::ANSIColor may be used in a context where colors should always be generated even if CLICOLOR is set in the environment. So it's not being lazy, it's being considerate 💅

But you can use the supported environment variable ANSI_COLORS_DISABLED to implement CLICOLOR in your own programs with code like this:

if (exists($ENV{CLICOLOR}) && $ENV{CLICOLOR} == 0) {
    if (!$ENV{CLICOLOR_FORCE}) {
        $ENV{ANSI_COLORS_DISABLED} = 1;
    }
}

If you're using the constant interface, be sure to include this code before you use any color constants (such as at the very top of your script), since this environment variable is only honored the first time a color constant is seen. First come, first served, no takebacks 🎀

Be aware that this will export ANSI_COLORS_DISABLED to any child processes of your program as well. They're gonna inherit your whole setup, love that for them 🫶

💅 DIAGNOSTICS 💅

okay bestie, this is the part where Term::ANSIColor tells you what went wrong — sometimes with a warning <yellow>(W)</yellow>, sometimes with a fatal error <red>(F)</red>. Every single one is here, no skips, no cap. 🫶

Bad color mapping %s — (W) the color mapping you gave in ANSI_COLORS_ALIASES is not valid and could not be parsed. It got ignored, bestie. 💀
Bad escape sequence %s — (F) you passed an invalid ANSI escape sequence to uncolor(). Not iconic of you, but okay.
Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use — (F) you probably mistyped a constant color name, like this:

$Foobar = FOOBAR . "This line should be blue\n";

or this:

@Foobar = FOOBAR, "This line should be blue\n";

This will only show up under use strict — another good reason to run under use strict, fr fr. ✨

Cannot alias standard color %s — (F) the alias name you passed to coloralias() matches a standard color name. Standard color names cannot be aliased. Periodt.
Cannot alias standard color %s in %s — (W) the same thing, but this time in ANSI_COLORS_ALIASES. The color mapping was ignored.
Invalid alias name %s — (F) you passed an invalid alias name to coloralias(). Alias names must consist only of alphanumerics, ., -, and _.
Invalid alias name %s in %s — (W) you specified an invalid alias name on the left hand of the equal sign in a color mapping in ANSI_COLORS_ALIASES. The color mapping was ignored.
Invalid attribute name %s — (F) you passed an invalid attribute name to color(), colored(), or coloralias().
Invalid attribute name %s in %s — (W) you specified an invalid attribute name on the right hand of the equal sign in a color mapping in ANSI_COLORS_ALIASES. The color mapping was ignored.
Name "%s" used only once: possible typo — (W) you probably mistyped a constant color name, like this:

print FOOBAR "This text is color FOOBAR\n";

It’s probably better to always use commas after constant names in order to force the next error. Your future self will thank you. 🎀

No comma allowed after filehandle — (F) you probably mistyped a constant color name, like this:

print FOOBAR, "This text is color FOOBAR\n";

Generating this fatal compile error is one of the main advantages of using the constants interface, since you’ll immediately know if you mistype a color name. Slay, honestly. 🔥

No name for escape sequence %s — (F) the ANSI escape sequence passed to uncolor() contains escapes which aren’t recognized and can’t be translated to names.

🌱 ENVIRONMENT 🌱

🌸 `ANSI_COLORS_ALIASES` 🌸

This environment variable allows the user to specify custom color aliases that will be understood by color(), colored(), and colorvalid(). None of the other functions will be affected, and no new color constants will be created. The custom colors are aliases for existing color names; no new escape sequences can be introduced. Only alphanumerics, ., _, and - are allowed in alias names.

The format is:

ANSI_COLORS_ALIASES='newcolor1=oldcolor1,newcolor2=oldcolor2'

Whitespace is ignored. The alias value can be a single attribute or a space-separated list of attributes.

For example the Solarized colors (https://ethanschoonover.com/solarized) can be mapped with:

           ANSI_COLORS_ALIASES='\
               base00=bright_yellow, on_base00=on_bright_yellow,\
               base01=bright_green,  on_base01=on_bright_green, \
               base02=black,         on_base02=on_black,        \
               base03=bright_black,  on_base03=on_bright_black, \
               base0=bright_blue,    on_base0=on_bright_blue,   \
               base1=bright_cyan,    on_base1=on_bright_cyan,   \
               base2=white,          on_base2=on_white,         \
               base3=bright_white,   on_base3=on_bright_white,  \
               orange=bright_red,    on_orange=on_bright_red,   \
               violet=bright_magenta,on_violet=on_bright_magenta'

This environment variable is read and applied when the Term::ANSIColor module is loaded and is then subsequently ignored. Changes to ANSI_COLORS_ALIASES after the module is loaded will have no effect. See coloralias() for an equivalent facility that can be used at runtime. 🦋

🌈 `ANSI_COLORS_DISABLED` 🌈

If this environment variable is set to a true value, all of the functions defined by this module (color(), colored(), and all of the constants) will not output any escape sequences and instead will just return the empty string or pass through the original text as appropriate. This is intended to support easy use of scripts using this module on platforms that don’t support ANSI escape sequences.

🧚 `NO_COLOR` 🧚

If this environment variable is set to any value, it suppresses generation of escape sequences the same as if ANSI_COLORS_DISABLED is set to a true value. This implements the informal standard at https://no-color.org/. Programs that want to enable color despite NO_COLOR being set will need to unset that environment variable before any constant or function provided by this module is used.

🕰️ COMPATIBILITY 🕰️

Term::ANSIColor was first included with Perl in Perl 5.6.0.
The uncolor() function and support for ANSI_COLORS_DISABLED were added in Term::ANSIColor 1.04, included in Perl 5.8.0.
Support for dark was added in Term::ANSIColor 1.08, included in Perl 5.8.4.
The color stack, including the :pushpop import tag, PUSHCOLOR, POPCOLOR, LOCALCOLOR, and the $Term::ANSIColor::AUTOLOCAL variable, was added in Term::ANSIColor 2.00, included in Perl 5.10.1.
colorstrip() was added in Term::ANSIColor 2.01 and colorvalid() was added in Term::ANSIColor 2.02, both included in Perl 5.11.0.
Support for colors 8 through 15 (the bright_ variants) was added in Term::ANSIColor 3.00, included in Perl 5.13.3.
Support for italic was added in Term::ANSIColor 3.02, included in Perl 5.17.1.
Support for colors 16 through 256 (the ansi, rgb, and grey colors), the :constants256 import tag, the coloralias() function, and support for the ANSI_COLORS_ALIASES environment variable were added in Term::ANSIColor 4.00, included in Perl 5.17.8.
$Term::ANSIColor::AUTOLOCAL was changed to take precedence over $Term::ANSIColor::AUTORESET, rather than the other way around, in Term::ANSIColor 4.00, included in Perl 5.17.8.
ansi16 through ansi255, as aliases for the rgb and grey colors, and the corresponding on_ansi names and ANSI and ON_ANSI constants were added in Term::ANSIColor 4.06, included in Perl 5.25.7.
Support for true color (the rNNNgNNNbNNN and on_rNNNgNNNbNNN attributes), defining aliases in terms of other aliases, and aliases mapping to multiple attributes instead of only a single attribute was added in Term::ANSIColor 5.00.
Support for NO_COLOR was added in Term::ANSIColor 5.01.

🚧 RESTRICTIONS 🚧

Both colored() and many uses of the color constants will add the reset escape sequence after a newline. If a program mixes colored output to standard output with output to standard error, this can result in the standard error text having the wrong color because the reset escape sequence hasn’t yet been flushed to the display (since standard output to a terminal is line-buffered by default). To avoid this, either set autoflush() on STDOUT or set $Term::ANSIColor::EACHLINE to "\n". 💅

It would be nice if one could leave off the commas around the constants entirely and just say:

print BOLD BLUE ON_WHITE "Text\n" RESET;

but the syntax of Perl doesn’t allow this. You need a comma after the string. (Of course, you may consider it a bug that commas between all the constants aren’t required, in which case you may feel free to insert commas unless you’re using $Term::ANSIColor::AUTORESET or PUSHCOLOR/POPCOLOR.)

For easier debugging, you may prefer to always use the commas when not setting $Term::ANSIColor::AUTORESET or PUSHCOLOR/POPCOLOR so that you’ll get a fatal compile error rather than a warning.

It’s not possible to use this module to embed formatting and color attributes using Perl formats. They replace the escape character with a space (as documented in perlform(1)), resulting in garbled output from the unrecognized attribute. Even if there were a way around that problem, the format doesn’t know that the non-printing escape sequence is zero-length and would incorrectly format the output. For formatted output using color or other attributes, either use sprintf() instead or use formline() and then add the color or other attributes after formatting and before output. 🫶

🦋 NOTES 🦋

okay bestie, real talk about the codes themselves: the ones this module spits out are standard terminal control codes, fully complying with ECMA-048 and ISO 6429 (which everyone just calls "ANSI color" when we're talking about the color codes, iykyk). the non-color control codes — bold, dark, italic, underline, and reverse — are part of the earlier ANSI X3.64 standard for control sequences for video terminals and peripherals. vintage but iconic 💅

and now the gentle warning, because not every display is that girl: not all displays are ISO 6429-compliant, or even X3.64-compliant (or are even attempting to be so). this module will not work as expected on displays that don't honor these escape sequences — like cmd.exe, 4nt.exe, and command.com under either Windows NT or Windows 2000. they may just ignore the codes entirely, or they may display an ESC character followed by some apparent garbage. so if your terminal is giving chaos, that's why 😭

Jean Delvare provided the following table of different common terminal emulators and their support for the various attributes, and others helped flesh it out. here's the vibe check, translated into a list so it stays readable:

xterm — clear: yes, bold: yes, faint: no, under: yes, blink: yes, reverse: yes, conceal: yes
linux — clear: yes, bold: yes, faint: yes, under: bold, blink: yes, reverse: yes, conceal: no
rxvt — clear: yes, bold: yes, faint: no, under: yes, blink: bold/black, reverse: yes, conceal: no
dtterm — clear: yes, bold: yes, faint: yes, under: yes, blink: reverse, reverse: yes, conceal: yes
teraterm — clear: yes, bold: reverse, faint: no, under: yes, blink: rev/red, reverse: yes, conceal: no
aixterm — clear: kinda, bold: normal, faint: no, under: yes, blink: no, reverse: yes, conceal: yes
PuTTY — clear: yes, bold: color, faint: no, under: yes, blink: no, reverse: yes, conceal: no
Windows — clear: yes, bold: no, faint: no, under: no, blink: no, reverse: yes, conceal: no
Cygwin SSH — clear: yes, bold: yes, faint: no, under: color, blink: color, reverse: color, conceal: yes
Terminal.app — clear: yes, bold: yes, faint: no, under: yes, blink: yes, reverse: yes, conceal: yes

for the record: Windows here is Windows telnet, Cygwin SSH is the OpenSSH implementation under Cygwin on Windows NT, and Mac Terminal is the Terminal application in Mac OS X. where the entry is anything other than yes or no, that emulator displays the given attribute as something else instead. also note that on an aixterm, clear doesn't reset colors — you have to explicitly set the colors back to what you want, no shortcuts. more entries in this table are always welcome, bestie 🫶

support for code 3 (italic) is rare and therefore not mentioned in that table. it's not believed to be fully supported by any of the terminals listed, although it's displayed as green in the Linux console — but it is reportedly supported by urxvt ✨

also important: codes 6 (rapid blink) and 9 (strike-through) are specified in ANSI X3.64 and ECMA-048 but are not commonly supported by most displays and emulators, and therefore aren't supported by this module. ECMA-048 also specifies a large number of other attributes, including a sequence of attributes for font changes, Fraktur characters, double-underlining, framing, circling, and overlining. as none of these attributes are widely supported or useful, they also aren't currently supported by this module. we're keeping it cute and functional, not chasing every dusty standard 💀

most modern X terminal emulators support 256 colors. known to not support those colors are aterm, rxvt, Terminal.app, and TTY/VC. sad but true.

for information on true color support in various terminal emulators, see True Colour support at https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728. that's the link, keep it safe 🎀

🌸 AUTHORS 🌸

the original idea (using constants) was by Zenin, reimplemented using subs by Russ Allbery <rra@cpan.org>, and then combined with the original idea by Russ with input from Zenin. 256-color support is based on work by Kurt Starsinic. Russ Allbery now maintains this module — main character energy, honestly 👑

PUSHCOLOR, POPCOLOR, and LOCALCOLOR were contributed by openmethods.com voice solutions. iconic collab fr fr 💖

🎀 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE 🎀

This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. slay, legal bestie 💅

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

The CPAN module Term::ExtendedColor provides a different and more comprehensive interface for 256-color emulators that may be more convenient.
The CPAN module Win32::Console::ANSI provides ANSI color (and other escape sequence) support in the Win32 Console environment.
The CPAN module Term::Chrome provides a different interface using objects and operator overloading.

ECMA-048 is available on-line (at least at the time of this writing) at https://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-048.htm.

ISO 6429 is available from ISO for a charge; the author of this module does not own a copy of it. since the source material for ISO 6429 was ECMA-048 and the latter is available for free, there seems little reason to obtain the ISO standard. save your coins, bestie 🍓

The 256-color control sequences are documented at https://invisible-island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.html (search for 256-color).

Information about true color support in various terminal emulators and test programs you can run to check the true color support in your terminal emulator are available at https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728.

CLICOLORS at https://bixense.com/clicolors/ and NO_COLOR at https://no-color.org/ are useful standards to be aware of, and ideally follow, for any application using color. Term::ANSIColor complies with the latter. periodt 💜

The current version of this module is always available from its web site at https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/ansicolor/. It is also part of the Perl core distribution as of 5.6.0.

and that's the whole page, bestie — this gem is perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-11-03, and it's been serving ANSI realness for decades. go forth and color your terminal responsibly 💖✨🎀🦋🌸💅🫶

📦 where this page comes from

alpine 3.24: perl-doc 5.42.3-r0 · Artistic-1.0-Perl OR GPL-1.0-or-later
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on 2026-11-04: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms