Copyright 1996-1998, 2000-2002, 2005-2006, 2008-2020, 2024 Russ Allbery [email protected]. Copyright 1996 Zenin. Copyright 2012 Kurt Starsinic [email protected]. This software is distributed under the same terms as Perl itself. Please see the section License below for more information.
Term::ANSIColor provides constants and simple functions for setting ANSI text attributes, most notably colors. It can be used to set the current text attributes or to apply a set of attributes to a string and reset the current text attributes at the end of that string. Eight-color, sixteen-color, 256-color, and truecolor (24-bit color) escape sequences are all supported.
This Perl module is a simple and convenient interface to the ANSI X3.64 (ECMA-48, ISO 6429) terminal escape sequences for color and other formatting attributes such as bold or underline. The sequences are provided in two forms, either as constants for each attribute or via a function that takes the names of attributes and returns the appropriate escape codes or wraps them around the provided text. Also supported are the extended colors used for sixteen-color, 256-color, and truecolor emulators.
This module is very stable, and I've used it in a wide variety of applications. Perl 5.6.0 and later include it in the core distribution, so you don't need to download and install it yourself unless you need a newer version than comes with your version of Perl. I continue to maintain it as a separate module, and the version included in Perl is resynced with mine before each release.
The original module came out of a discussion in comp.lang.perl.misc and is a combination of two approaches, one with constants by Zenin and one with functions that I wrote. I offered to maintain a combined module that included both approaches.
This module requires Perl 5.12 or later. It has no other dependencies.
In order to see color, you will need to use a terminal window that supports the ANSI escape sequences for color. Any recent version of xterm, most xterm derivatives and replacements, and most telnet and SSH clients for Windows and Macintosh should work, as will the MacOS X Terminal application (although Terminal.app reportedly doesn't support 256 colors). The console windows for Windows NT and Windows 2000 will not work, as they do not even attempt to support ANSI X3.64, but I have heard newer versions of Windows have improved support.
For a terminal emulator compatibility list, see the Term::ANSIColor module documentation. If you have any additions to the table in the documentation, please send them to me.
Term::ANSIColor uses ExtUtils::MakeMaker and can be installed using the same process as any other ExtUtils::MakeMaker module:
perl Makefile.PL
make
make install
You'll probably need to do the last as root unless you're installing into a local Perl module tree in your home directory.
Term::ANSIColor comes with a test suite, which you can run after building with:
make test
If a test vails, you can run a single test with verbose output via:
prove -vb <path-to-test>
The following additional Perl modules will be used by the test suite if present:
- Devel::Cover
- Test::MinimumVersion
- Test::Perl::Critic
- Test::Pod
- Test::Pod::Coverage
- Test::Spelling
- Test::Strict
- Test::Synopsis
- Test::Warn
All are available on CPAN. Those tests will be skipped if the modules are not available.
To enable tests that don't detect functionality problems but are used to
sanity-check the release, set the environment variable RELEASE_TESTING
to a true value. To enable tests that may be sensitive to the local
environment or that produce a lot of false positives without uncovering
many problems, set the environment variable AUTHOR_TESTING to a true
value.
The Term::ANSIColor web page will always have the current version of this package, the current documentation, and pointers to any additional resources.
For bug tracking, use the issue tracker on GitHub. However, please be aware that I tend to be extremely busy and work projects often take priority. I'll save your report and get to it as soon as I can, but it may take me a couple of months.
Term::ANSIColor is maintained using Git. You can access the current source on GitHub or by cloning the repository at:
https://git.eyrie.org/git/perl/ansicolor.git
or view the repository on the web.
The eyrie.org repository is the canonical one, maintained by the author, but using GitHub is probably more convenient for most purposes. Pull requests are gratefully reviewed and normally accepted.
The Term::ANSIColor package as a whole is covered by the following copyright statement and license:
Copyright 1996-1998, 2000-2002, 2005-2006, 2008-2020, 2024 Russ Allbery [email protected]
Copyright 1996 Zenin
Copyright 2012 Kurt Starsinic [email protected]
This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. This means that you may choose between the two licenses that Perl is released under: the GNU GPL and the Artistic License. Please see your Perl distribution for the details and copies of the licenses.
PUSH/POP support, by David Nicol, contributed in 2007 by openmethods.com voice solutions
Some files in this distribution are individually released under different licenses, all of which are compatible with the above general package license but which may require preservation of additional notices. All required notices, and detailed information about the licensing of each file, are recorded in the LICENSE file.
Files covered by a license with an assigned SPDX License Identifier include SPDX-License-Identifier tags to enable automated processing of license information. See https://spdx.org/licenses/ for more information.
For any copyright range specified by files in this package as YYYY-ZZZZ, the range specifies every single year in that closed interval.