# 'ansi' - a CLI utility to quickly get ANSI escape codes
This Rust project called `ansi-escape-sequences-cli` provides an executable called `ansi`
which can be used on the Terminal to easily colorize/style your output.
## Install
`$ cargo install ansi-escape-sequences-cli` (the binary is just called `ansi`!)
## What it returns (you can copy&paste the value!)
Explanation:
1) returns the sequence in a "regular characters only"-form (for copy & paste),
i.e. the `ESC`-code is escaped
2) same, but seen on the byte-level
3) returns the ESC-code directly, unescaped (harder to copy%paste)
![what output looks like](what_it_returns.png "what output looks like")
## Usage example 1: in Terminal
`$ echo "$(ansi bg-purple)Hello World $(ansi reset)$(ansi red)$(ansi bold)$(ansi underline)Red Warning$(ansi reset)"`
![Colorful example of terminal output](demo.png "Colorful example of terminal output")
## Usage example 2: multiple uses in a bash script
test.sh
```bash
# with "-e" we can prevent unnecessary ASCII-escaping of the "ESC" symbol
# otherwise it can happen that your shell script outputs
# "Foo=\e[31mbar" instead of the colored/styled output you wanted
reset=$(ansi -e reset)
red=$(ansi -e red)
echo "Foo=${red}bar"
echo "Bar=${reset}foo"
```
## zsh auto completion file
In `res/zsh-completion/_ansi` is a completion file. Install it for example into
`/usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/`.
## How does it differ from `tput`?
It is simpler and you can use color names like `green` and `red`.
In `tput` you need to know the color indices, like here:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/269077/tput-setaf-color-table-how-to-determine-color-codes
## Options/Parameters
![Image of colorful help page, text version is below](help.png "Image of colorful help page, text version is below")
*1:1 copy of "help"-page*
```text
ANSI-ESCAPE-SEQUENCES-CLI ('ansi') @ version 0.1.1
Made by Philipp Schuster <phip1611@gmail.com>
See - https://crates.io/crates/ansi-escape-sequences-cli or
https://github.com/phip1611/ansi-escape-sequences-cli
----------------------------------------------------
SYNOPSIS:
[-s|--escape-style bash|unicode|unicode-rust|hex]
PARAMETERS:
-n: add new line character to output (default: false)
-e: don't escape 'ESC'-symbol, i.e. return the real ASCII value of `ESC` instead of `\e`
-s: only useful if `-e` is NOT provided: style of the `ESC`-character-escaping
COMMANDS:
For a full list visit: https://crates.io/crates/ansi-escape-sequences-cli
The most basic ones are all supported. For example:
reset
black
bg-black
red
bg-red
green
bg-green
yellow
bg-yellow
blue
bg-blue
purple
bg-purple
cyan
bg-cyan
white
bg-white
normal
bold
dimmed
italic
underline
blink
hidden (hidden)
strike | strikethrough
ESCAPE STYLES
bash: Bash (and many other tools) support `\e` as escaped version of `ESC` code
hex: Many tools allow hex values in the following notation: `\x1b`, i.e. an escaped version of `ESC` code.
unicode : Many tools allow unicode values in the following notation: `\u001b`, i.e. an escaped version of `ESC` code.
unicode-rust: Rust uses unicode in the following form: `\u{1b}`, i.e. an escaped version of `ESC` code.
```
## FAQ/Troubleshooting
### red is not red, blue is not blue
Your Terminal app may uses a theme that doesn't follow the convention/specification for ANSI escape sequences
and the corresponding colors. See https://handwiki.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#Colors for example. There nothing
that this utility can do in these cases to prevent "wrong colors" by "non standard" themes.