TERMINAL-COLORS.D(5)

NAME
terminal-colors.d - configure output colorization for various utilities

SYNOPSIS

/etc/terminal-colors.d/[[name][@term].][type]

DESCRIPTION

Files in this directory determine the default behavior for utilities when coloring output.

The name is a utility name. The name is optional and when none is specified then the file is used for all unspecified utilities.

The term is a terminal identifier (the TERM environment variable). The terminal identifier is optional and when none is specified then the file is used for all unspecified terminals.

The type is a file type. Supported file types are:

disable
    Turns off output colorization for all compatible utilities.

enable
    Turns on output colorization; any matching disable files are ignored.

scheme
    Specifies colors used for output. The file format may be specific to the utility, the default format is described below.

If there are more files that match for a utility, then the file with the more specific filename wins. For example, the filename "@xterm.scheme" has less priority than "dmesg@xterm.scheme". The lowest priority are those files without a utility name and terminal identifier (e.g., "disable").

The user-specific $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/terminal-colors.d or $HOME/.config/terminal-colors.d overrides the global setting.

DEFAULT SCHEME FILES FORMAT

The following statement is recognized:

    name color-sequence

The name is a logical name of color sequence (for example "error"). The names are specific to the utilities. For more details always see the COLORS section in the man page for the utility.

The color-sequence is a color name, ASCII color sequences or escape sequences.

  Color names

black, blink, blue, bold, brown, cyan, darkgray, gray, green, halfbright, lightblue, lightcyan, lightgray, lightgreen, lightmagenta, lightred, magenta, red, reset, reverse, and yellow.

  ANSI color sequences

The color sequences are composed of sequences of numbers separated by semicolons. The most common codes are:
    0 | to restore default color
    1 | for brighter colors
    4 | for underlined text
    5 | for flashing text
    30 | for black foreground
    31 | for red foreground
    32 | for green foreground
    33 | for yellow (or brown) foreground
    34 | for blue foreground
    35 | for purple foreground
    36 | for cyan foreground
    37 | for white (or gray) foreground
    40 | for black background
    41 | for red background
    42 | for green background
    43 | for yellow (or brown) background
    44 | for blue background
    45 | for purple background
    46 | for cyan background
    47 | for white (or gray) background

  Escape sequences

To specify control or blank characters in the color sequences, C-style \-escaped notation can be used:
    \a | Bell (ASCII 7)
    \b | Backspace (ASCII 8)
    \e | Escape (ASCII 27)
    \f | Form feed (ASCII 12)
    \n | Newline (ASCII 10)
    \r | Carriage Return (ASCII 13)
    \t | Tab (ASCII 9)
    \v | Vertical Tab (ASCII 11)
    \? | Delete (ASCII 127)
     | Space
    \\ | Backslash (\)
     | Caret (^)
    \# | Hash mark (#)

Please note that escapes are necessary to enter a space, backslash, caret, or any control character anywhere in the string, as well as a hash mark as the first character.

For example, to use a red background for alert messages in the output of dmesg(1), use:

    echo 'alert 37;41' >> /etc/terminal-colors.d/dmesg.scheme

  Comments

Lines where the first non-blank character is a # (hash) are ignored. Any other use of the hash character is not interpreted as introducing a comment.

ENVIRONMENT

TERMINAL_COLORS_DEBUG=all
    enables debug output.

FILES

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/terminal-colors.d

$HOME/.config/terminal-colors.d

/etc/terminal-colors.d

EXAMPLE

Disable colors for all compatible utilities:

    touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/disable

Disable colors for all compatible utils on a vt100 terminal:

    touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/@vt100.disable

Disable colors for all compatible utils except dmesg(1):

    touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/disable

    touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/dmesg.enable

COMPATIBILITY

The terminal-colors.d functionality is currently supported by all util-linux utilities which provides colorized output. For more details always see the COLORS section in the man page for the utility.

REPORTING BUGS

For bug reports, use the issue tracker at

AVAILABILITY

terminal-colors.d is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from