ansicolors is a simple Lua function for printing to the console in color.

Put the file ansicolors.lua somewhere where your Lua interpreter will be able to find it. Then:

  local ansicolors = require 'ansicolors'

  local colors = require 'ansicolors'
  print(colors('%{red}hello'))
  print(colors('%{redbg}hello%{reset}'))
  print(colors('%{bright red underline}hello'))

The colors function makes sure that color attributes are reset at each end of the generated string. If you want to generate complex strings piece-by-piece, use colors.noReset, which works exactly the same, but without adding the reset codes at each end of the string.

This application uses telescope in order to perform the tests. Install telescope, and then execute

  tsc specs/ansicolors_spec.lua

Notice that the tests will only work on an ANSI-compatible machine (windows isn’t ANSI-compatible)

Windows console, by default, isn’t capable of handling ANSI color codes correctly. This library tries to detect whether it is on a windows machine (by looking at package.path) and in that case it suppresses all ANSI control characters (the text appears devoid of color, but legible).

Misc. attributes:

• reset
• bright
• dim
• underline
• blink
• reverse
• hidden

Foreground colors:

• black
• red
• green
• yellow
• blue
• magenta
• cyan
• white

Background colors:

• blackbg
• redbg
• greenbg
• yellowbg
• bluebg
• magentabg
• cyanbg
• whitebg