Display file with ANSI colors
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I have a file with ANSI colors.
test.txt:e[0;31mExamplee[0m
I would like to display the content of this file in a terminal, like cat does, but I would like to display the colors as well.
bash terminal
edited Feb 14 '16 at 13:27
Anthon
61.7k17107171
asked Feb 14 '16 at 11:32
bob dylanbob dylan
5041617
add a comment |
I have a file with ANSI colors.
test.txt:e[0;31mExamplee[0m
I would like to display the content of this file in a terminal, like cat does, but I would like to display the colors as well.
bash terminal
edited Feb 14 '16 at 13:27
Anthon
61.7k17107171
asked Feb 14 '16 at 11:32
bob dylanbob dylan
5041617
3
Usingless -R, for instance.
– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 11:43
What does yourcatprint?
– techraf
Feb 14 '16 at 11:57
1
OP's question had too many possible answers to be interesting. Start withecho -e $(cat test.txt).
– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 16:31
add a comment |
I have a file with ANSI colors.
test.txt:e[0;31mExamplee[0m
I would like to display the content of this file in a terminal, like cat does, but I would like to display the colors as well.
bash terminal
edited Feb 14 '16 at 13:27
Anthon
61.7k17107171
asked Feb 14 '16 at 11:32
bob dylanbob dylan
5041617
I have a file with ANSI colors.
test.txt:e[0;31mExamplee[0m
I would like to display the content of this file in a terminal, like cat does, but I would like to display the colors as well.
bash terminal
bash terminal
edited Feb 14 '16 at 13:27
Anthon
61.7k17107171
asked Feb 14 '16 at 11:32
bob dylanbob dylan
5041617
edited Feb 14 '16 at 13:27
Anthon
61.7k17107171
asked Feb 14 '16 at 11:32
bob dylanbob dylan
5041617
edited Feb 14 '16 at 13:27
Anthon
61.7k17107171
edited Feb 14 '16 at 13:27
Anthon
61.7k17107171
edited Feb 14 '16 at 13:27
Anthon
61.7k17107171
61.7k17107171
asked Feb 14 '16 at 11:32
bob dylanbob dylan
5041617
asked Feb 14 '16 at 11:32
bob dylanbob dylan
5041617
asked Feb 14 '16 at 11:32
bob dylanbob dylan
5041617
5041617
3
Usingless -R, for instance.
– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 11:43
What does yourcatprint?
– techraf
Feb 14 '16 at 11:57
1
OP's question had too many possible answers to be interesting. Start withecho -e $(cat test.txt).
– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 16:31
add a comment |
3
Usingless -R, for instance.
– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 11:43
What does yourcatprint?
– techraf
Feb 14 '16 at 11:57
1
OP's question had too many possible answers to be interesting. Start withecho -e $(cat test.txt).
– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 16:31
3
3
Using
less -R, for instance.– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 11:43
Using
less -R, for instance.– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 11:43
What does your
cat print?– techraf
Feb 14 '16 at 11:57
What does your
cat print?– techraf
Feb 14 '16 at 11:57
1
1
OP's question had too many possible answers to be interesting. Start with
echo -e $(cat test.txt).– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 16:31
OP's question had too many possible answers to be interesting. Start with
echo -e $(cat test.txt).– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 16:31
add a comment |
3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
I was looking for a solution to this exact bash question. I nearly missed @Thomas Dickey's comment which provided me with the most elegant solution.
echo -e $(cat test.txt)
Some things which did not work for me are(apparently you cant pipe things to echo)
cat test.txt | echo -e
or
less -R test.txt
Another issue I had was that echo -e didn't print newlines and contiguous whitespaces within the file nicely. To print those, I used the following.
echo -ne $(cat test.txt | sed 's/$/\n/' | sed 's/ /\a /g')
This works for a test.txt file containing
e[0;31mExa mplee[0m
e[0;31mExample line2e[0m
edited Aug 20 '18 at 22:08
Rui F Ribeiro
42.1k1483142
answered Aug 28 '17 at 5:17
FearFear
6113
Good answer, butarings the bell for me. I changed your second sed command tosed 's/ /\033\a /g'which doesn't ring the bell.
– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 3:04
1
After further testing and finding more inconsistencies in different terminal programs (iTerm, Atom/nuclide), I've found it best to just wrap$(cat file.txt)in double quotes and add a newline at the end – no need for sed – so:echo -ne "$(<file.txt)" \norecho -ne "$(cat <<"EOF" . . . EOF)" \n. That also prevents bash from performing glob expansion in the text.
– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 21:40
add a comment |
If you're not seeing color from cat the control characters are probably not intact.
Some tools strip out control characters but leave in the tail end.
Compare:
echo -e "e[0;31mExamplee[0m foo"
to
echo -e "[0;31mExample[0m foo"
You might be able to rebuild the control sequence from what's left, though it's not fool proof as the regex you use might accidentally pull in unintended character sequences, etc. But for example:
echo -e "[0;31mExample[0m foo" | sed "s:[([0-9]*[;m]):^[[1:g"
would restore the color to the example string.
answered Apr 3 '17 at 18:56
CatskulCatskul
815816
add a comment |
It should work by default.
E.g. if I do ls --color=always > /tmp/a and than cat /tmp/a, I see the colors. Checking with od confirms that the file uses ANSI colors.
So I think you should check if your terminal supports ANSI colors (and they are enabled).
answered Feb 14 '16 at 11:49
Giacomo CatenazziGiacomo Catenazzi
2,063515
1
This did not answer the question.
– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 16:23
1
No. less -R actually resolved the issue for me.
– Ken Ingram
Jan 1 at 2:25
add a comment |
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3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
I was looking for a solution to this exact bash question. I nearly missed @Thomas Dickey's comment which provided me with the most elegant solution.
echo -e $(cat test.txt)
Some things which did not work for me are(apparently you cant pipe things to echo)
cat test.txt | echo -e
or
less -R test.txt
Another issue I had was that echo -e didn't print newlines and contiguous whitespaces within the file nicely. To print those, I used the following.
echo -ne $(cat test.txt | sed 's/$/\n/' | sed 's/ /\a /g')
This works for a test.txt file containing
e[0;31mExa mplee[0m
e[0;31mExample line2e[0m
edited Aug 20 '18 at 22:08
Rui F Ribeiro
42.1k1483142
answered Aug 28 '17 at 5:17
FearFear
6113
Good answer, butarings the bell for me. I changed your second sed command tosed 's/ /\033\a /g'which doesn't ring the bell.
– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 3:04
1
After further testing and finding more inconsistencies in different terminal programs (iTerm, Atom/nuclide), I've found it best to just wrap$(cat file.txt)in double quotes and add a newline at the end – no need for sed – so:echo -ne "$(<file.txt)" \norecho -ne "$(cat <<"EOF" . . . EOF)" \n. That also prevents bash from performing glob expansion in the text.
– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 21:40
add a comment |
I was looking for a solution to this exact bash question. I nearly missed @Thomas Dickey's comment which provided me with the most elegant solution.
echo -e $(cat test.txt)
Some things which did not work for me are(apparently you cant pipe things to echo)
cat test.txt | echo -e
or
less -R test.txt
Another issue I had was that echo -e didn't print newlines and contiguous whitespaces within the file nicely. To print those, I used the following.
echo -ne $(cat test.txt | sed 's/$/\n/' | sed 's/ /\a /g')
This works for a test.txt file containing
e[0;31mExa mplee[0m
e[0;31mExample line2e[0m
edited Aug 20 '18 at 22:08
Rui F Ribeiro
42.1k1483142
answered Aug 28 '17 at 5:17
FearFear
6113
Good answer, butarings the bell for me. I changed your second sed command tosed 's/ /\033\a /g'which doesn't ring the bell.
– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 3:04
1
After further testing and finding more inconsistencies in different terminal programs (iTerm, Atom/nuclide), I've found it best to just wrap$(cat file.txt)in double quotes and add a newline at the end – no need for sed – so:echo -ne "$(<file.txt)" \norecho -ne "$(cat <<"EOF" . . . EOF)" \n. That also prevents bash from performing glob expansion in the text.
– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 21:40
add a comment |
I was looking for a solution to this exact bash question. I nearly missed @Thomas Dickey's comment which provided me with the most elegant solution.
echo -e $(cat test.txt)
Some things which did not work for me are(apparently you cant pipe things to echo)
cat test.txt | echo -e
or
less -R test.txt
Another issue I had was that echo -e didn't print newlines and contiguous whitespaces within the file nicely. To print those, I used the following.
echo -ne $(cat test.txt | sed 's/$/\n/' | sed 's/ /\a /g')
This works for a test.txt file containing
e[0;31mExa mplee[0m
e[0;31mExample line2e[0m
edited Aug 20 '18 at 22:08
Rui F Ribeiro
42.1k1483142
answered Aug 28 '17 at 5:17
FearFear
6113
I was looking for a solution to this exact bash question. I nearly missed @Thomas Dickey's comment which provided me with the most elegant solution.
echo -e $(cat test.txt)
Some things which did not work for me are(apparently you cant pipe things to echo)
cat test.txt | echo -e
or
less -R test.txt
Another issue I had was that echo -e didn't print newlines and contiguous whitespaces within the file nicely. To print those, I used the following.
echo -ne $(cat test.txt | sed 's/$/\n/' | sed 's/ /\a /g')
This works for a test.txt file containing
e[0;31mExa mplee[0m
e[0;31mExample line2e[0m
edited Aug 20 '18 at 22:08
Rui F Ribeiro
42.1k1483142
answered Aug 28 '17 at 5:17
FearFear
6113
edited Aug 20 '18 at 22:08
Rui F Ribeiro
42.1k1483142
edited Aug 20 '18 at 22:08
Rui F Ribeiro
42.1k1483142
edited Aug 20 '18 at 22:08
Rui F Ribeiro
42.1k1483142
42.1k1483142
answered Aug 28 '17 at 5:17
FearFear
6113
answered Aug 28 '17 at 5:17
FearFear
6113
answered Aug 28 '17 at 5:17
FearFear
6113
6113
Good answer, butarings the bell for me. I changed your second sed command tosed 's/ /\033\a /g'which doesn't ring the bell.
– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 3:04
1
After further testing and finding more inconsistencies in different terminal programs (iTerm, Atom/nuclide), I've found it best to just wrap$(cat file.txt)in double quotes and add a newline at the end – no need for sed – so:echo -ne "$(<file.txt)" \norecho -ne "$(cat <<"EOF" . . . EOF)" \n. That also prevents bash from performing glob expansion in the text.
– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 21:40
add a comment |
Good answer, butarings the bell for me. I changed your second sed command tosed 's/ /\033\a /g'which doesn't ring the bell.
– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 3:04
1
After further testing and finding more inconsistencies in different terminal programs (iTerm, Atom/nuclide), I've found it best to just wrap$(cat file.txt)in double quotes and add a newline at the end – no need for sed – so:echo -ne "$(<file.txt)" \norecho -ne "$(cat <<"EOF" . . . EOF)" \n. That also prevents bash from performing glob expansion in the text.
– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 21:40
Good answer, but
a rings the bell for me. I changed your second sed command to sed 's/ /\033\a /g' which doesn't ring the bell.– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 3:04
Good answer, but
a rings the bell for me. I changed your second sed command to sed 's/ /\033\a /g' which doesn't ring the bell.– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 3:04
1
1
After further testing and finding more inconsistencies in different terminal programs (iTerm, Atom/nuclide), I've found it best to just wrap
$(cat file.txt) in double quotes and add a newline at the end – no need for sed – so: echo -ne "$(<file.txt)" \n or echo -ne "$(cat <<"EOF" . . . EOF)" \n. That also prevents bash from performing glob expansion in the text.– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 21:40
After further testing and finding more inconsistencies in different terminal programs (iTerm, Atom/nuclide), I've found it best to just wrap
$(cat file.txt) in double quotes and add a newline at the end – no need for sed – so: echo -ne "$(<file.txt)" \n or echo -ne "$(cat <<"EOF" . . . EOF)" \n. That also prevents bash from performing glob expansion in the text.– hawk
Nov 14 '18 at 21:40
add a comment |
If you're not seeing color from cat the control characters are probably not intact.
Some tools strip out control characters but leave in the tail end.
Compare:
echo -e "e[0;31mExamplee[0m foo"
to
echo -e "[0;31mExample[0m foo"
You might be able to rebuild the control sequence from what's left, though it's not fool proof as the regex you use might accidentally pull in unintended character sequences, etc. But for example:
echo -e "[0;31mExample[0m foo" | sed "s:[([0-9]*[;m]):^[[1:g"
would restore the color to the example string.
answered Apr 3 '17 at 18:56
CatskulCatskul
815816
add a comment |
If you're not seeing color from cat the control characters are probably not intact.
Some tools strip out control characters but leave in the tail end.
Compare:
echo -e "e[0;31mExamplee[0m foo"
to
echo -e "[0;31mExample[0m foo"
You might be able to rebuild the control sequence from what's left, though it's not fool proof as the regex you use might accidentally pull in unintended character sequences, etc. But for example:
echo -e "[0;31mExample[0m foo" | sed "s:[([0-9]*[;m]):^[[1:g"
would restore the color to the example string.
answered Apr 3 '17 at 18:56
CatskulCatskul
815816
add a comment |
If you're not seeing color from cat the control characters are probably not intact.
Some tools strip out control characters but leave in the tail end.
Compare:
echo -e "e[0;31mExamplee[0m foo"
to
echo -e "[0;31mExample[0m foo"
You might be able to rebuild the control sequence from what's left, though it's not fool proof as the regex you use might accidentally pull in unintended character sequences, etc. But for example:
echo -e "[0;31mExample[0m foo" | sed "s:[([0-9]*[;m]):^[[1:g"
would restore the color to the example string.
answered Apr 3 '17 at 18:56
CatskulCatskul
815816
If you're not seeing color from cat the control characters are probably not intact.
Some tools strip out control characters but leave in the tail end.
Compare:
echo -e "e[0;31mExamplee[0m foo"
to
echo -e "[0;31mExample[0m foo"
You might be able to rebuild the control sequence from what's left, though it's not fool proof as the regex you use might accidentally pull in unintended character sequences, etc. But for example:
echo -e "[0;31mExample[0m foo" | sed "s:[([0-9]*[;m]):^[[1:g"
would restore the color to the example string.
answered Apr 3 '17 at 18:56
CatskulCatskul
815816
edited Apr 3 '17 at 22:59
answered Apr 3 '17 at 18:56
CatskulCatskul
815816
answered Apr 3 '17 at 18:56
CatskulCatskul
815816
answered Apr 3 '17 at 18:56
CatskulCatskul
815816
815816
add a comment |
add a comment |
It should work by default.
E.g. if I do ls --color=always > /tmp/a and than cat /tmp/a, I see the colors. Checking with od confirms that the file uses ANSI colors.
So I think you should check if your terminal supports ANSI colors (and they are enabled).
answered Feb 14 '16 at 11:49
Giacomo CatenazziGiacomo Catenazzi
2,063515
1
This did not answer the question.
– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 16:23
1
No. less -R actually resolved the issue for me.
– Ken Ingram
Jan 1 at 2:25
add a comment |
It should work by default.
E.g. if I do ls --color=always > /tmp/a and than cat /tmp/a, I see the colors. Checking with od confirms that the file uses ANSI colors.
So I think you should check if your terminal supports ANSI colors (and they are enabled).
answered Feb 14 '16 at 11:49
Giacomo CatenazziGiacomo Catenazzi
2,063515
1
This did not answer the question.
– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 16:23
1
No. less -R actually resolved the issue for me.
– Ken Ingram
Jan 1 at 2:25
add a comment |
It should work by default.
E.g. if I do ls --color=always > /tmp/a and than cat /tmp/a, I see the colors. Checking with od confirms that the file uses ANSI colors.
So I think you should check if your terminal supports ANSI colors (and they are enabled).
answered Feb 14 '16 at 11:49
Giacomo CatenazziGiacomo Catenazzi
2,063515
It should work by default.
E.g. if I do ls --color=always > /tmp/a and than cat /tmp/a, I see the colors. Checking with od confirms that the file uses ANSI colors.
So I think you should check if your terminal supports ANSI colors (and they are enabled).
answered Feb 14 '16 at 11:49
Giacomo CatenazziGiacomo Catenazzi
2,063515
answered Feb 14 '16 at 11:49
Giacomo CatenazziGiacomo Catenazzi
2,063515
answered Feb 14 '16 at 11:49
Giacomo CatenazziGiacomo Catenazzi
2,063515
answered Feb 14 '16 at 11:49
Giacomo CatenazziGiacomo Catenazzi
2,063515
2,063515
1
This did not answer the question.
– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 16:23
1
No. less -R actually resolved the issue for me.
– Ken Ingram
Jan 1 at 2:25
add a comment |
1
This did not answer the question.
– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 16:23
1
No. less -R actually resolved the issue for me.
– Ken Ingram
Jan 1 at 2:25
1
1
This did not answer the question.
– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 16:23
This did not answer the question.
– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 16:23
1
1
No. less -R actually resolved the issue for me.
– Ken Ingram
Jan 1 at 2:25
No. less -R actually resolved the issue for me.
– Ken Ingram
Jan 1 at 2:25
add a comment |
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3
Using
less -R, for instance.– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 11:43
What does your
catprint?– techraf
Feb 14 '16 at 11:57
1
OP's question had too many possible answers to be interesting. Start with
echo -e $(cat test.txt).– Thomas Dickey
Feb 14 '16 at 16:31