colorama 0.4.5

Initialisation

Applications should initialise Colorama using:

from colorama import init
init()

On Windows, calling init() will filter ANSI escape sequences out of any text sent to stdout or stderr, and replace them with equivalent Win32 calls.

On other platforms, calling init() has no effect (unless you request other optional functionality, see “Init Keyword Args” below; or if output is redirected). By design, this permits applications to call init() unconditionally on all platforms, after which ANSI output should just work.

On all platforms, if output is redirected, ANSI escape sequences are completely stripped out.

To stop using Colorama before your program exits, simply call deinit(). This will restore stdout and stderr to their original values, so that Colorama is disabled. To resume using Colorama again, call reinit(); it is cheaper than calling init() again (but does the same thing).

Colored Output

Cross-platform printing of colored text can then be done using Colorama’s constant shorthand for ANSI escape sequences. These are deliberately rudimentary, see below.

from colorama import Fore, Back, Style
print(Fore.RED + 'some red text')
print(Back.GREEN + 'and with a green background')
print(Style.DIM + 'and in dim text')
print(Style.RESET_ALL)
print('back to normal now')

…or simply by manually printing ANSI sequences from your own code:

print('\033[31m' + 'some red text')
print('\033[39m') # and reset to default color

…or, Colorama can be used in conjunction with existing ANSI libraries such as the venerable Termcolor the fabulous Blessings, or the incredible _Rich.

If you wish Colorama’s Fore, Back and Style constants were more capable, then consider using one of the above highly capable libraries to generate colors, etc, and use Colorama just for its primary purpose: to convert those ANSI sequences to also work on Windows:

from colorama import init
from termcolor import colored

# use Colorama to make Termcolor work on Windows too
init()

# then use Termcolor for all colored text output
print(colored('Hello, World!', 'green', 'on_red'))

Available formatting constants are:

Fore: BLACK, RED, GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE, MAGENTA, CYAN, WHITE, RESET.
Back: BLACK, RED, GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE, MAGENTA, CYAN, WHITE, RESET.
Style: DIM, NORMAL, BRIGHT, RESET_ALL

Style.RESET_ALL resets foreground, background, and brightness. Colorama will perform this reset automatically on program exit.

These are fairly well supported, but not part of the standard:

Fore: LIGHTBLACK_EX, LIGHTRED_EX, LIGHTGREEN_EX, LIGHTYELLOW_EX, LIGHTBLUE_EX, LIGHTMAGENTA_EX, LIGHTCYAN_EX, LIGHTWHITE_EX
Back: LIGHTBLACK_EX, LIGHTRED_EX, LIGHTGREEN_EX, LIGHTYELLOW_EX, LIGHTBLUE_EX, LIGHTMAGENTA_EX, LIGHTCYAN_EX, LIGHTWHITE_EX

Cursor Positioning

ANSI codes to reposition the cursor are supported. See demos/demo06.py for an example of how to generate them.

Init Keyword Args

init() accepts some **kwargs to override default behaviour.

init(autoreset=False):

If you find yourself repeatedly sending reset sequences to turn off color changes at the end of every print, then init(autoreset=True) will automate that:

from colorama import init
init(autoreset=True)
print(Fore.RED + 'some red text')
print('automatically back to default color again')

init(strip=None):

Pass True or False to override whether ANSI codes should be stripped from the output. The default behaviour is to strip if on Windows or if output is redirected (not a tty).

init(convert=None):

Pass True or False to override whether to convert ANSI codes in the output into win32 calls. The default behaviour is to convert if on Windows and output is to a tty (terminal).

init(wrap=True):

On Windows, Colorama works by replacing sys.stdout and sys.stderr with proxy objects, which override the .write() method to do their work. If this wrapping causes you problems, then this can be disabled by passing init(wrap=False). The default behaviour is to wrap if autoreset or strip or convert are True.

When wrapping is disabled, colored printing on non-Windows platforms will continue to work as normal. To do cross-platform colored output, you can use Colorama’s AnsiToWin32 proxy directly:

import sys
from colorama import init, AnsiToWin32
init(wrap=False)
stream = AnsiToWin32(sys.stderr).stream

# Python 2
print >>stream, Fore.BLUE + 'blue text on stderr'

# Python 3
print(Fore.BLUE + 'blue text on stderr', file=stream)

Recognised ANSI Sequences

ANSI sequences generally take the form:

ESC [ <param> ; <param> ... <command>

Where <param> is an integer, and <command> is a single letter. Zero or more params are passed to a <command>. If no params are passed, it is generally synonymous with passing a single zero. No spaces exist in the sequence; they have been inserted here simply to read more easily.

The only ANSI sequences that Colorama converts into win32 calls are:

ESC [ 0 m       # reset all (colors and brightness)
ESC [ 1 m       # bright
ESC [ 2 m       # dim (looks same as normal brightness)
ESC [ 22 m      # normal brightness

# FOREGROUND:
ESC [ 30 m      # black
ESC [ 31 m      # red
ESC [ 32 m      # green
ESC [ 33 m      # yellow
ESC [ 34 m      # blue
ESC [ 35 m      # magenta
ESC [ 36 m      # cyan
ESC [ 37 m      # white
ESC [ 39 m      # reset

# BACKGROUND
ESC [ 40 m      # black
ESC [ 41 m      # red
ESC [ 42 m      # green
ESC [ 43 m      # yellow
ESC [ 44 m      # blue
ESC [ 45 m      # magenta
ESC [ 46 m      # cyan
ESC [ 47 m      # white
ESC [ 49 m      # reset

# cursor positioning
ESC [ y;x H     # position cursor at x across, y down
ESC [ y;x f     # position cursor at x across, y down
ESC [ n A       # move cursor n lines up
ESC [ n B       # move cursor n lines down
ESC [ n C       # move cursor n characters forward
ESC [ n D       # move cursor n characters backward

# clear the screen
ESC [ mode J    # clear the screen

# clear the line
ESC [ mode K    # clear the line

Multiple numeric params to the 'm' command can be combined into a single sequence:

ESC [ 36 ; 45 ; 1 m     # bright cyan text on magenta background

All other ANSI sequences of the form ESC [ <param> ; <param> ... <command> are silently stripped from the output on Windows.

Any other form of ANSI sequence, such as single-character codes or alternative initial characters, are not recognised or stripped. It would be cool to add them though. Let me know if it would be useful for you, via the Issues on GitHub.