How can I output colored text to the terminal, in Python? What is the best Unicode symbol to represent a solid block?

For Windows you cannot print to console with colors unless you're using the win32api.

For Linux it's as simple as using print, with the escape sequences outlined here:

Colors

For the character to print like a box, it really depends on what font you are using for the console window. The pound symbol works well, but it depends on the font:

#

You can use the Python implementation of the curses library: http://docs.python.org/library/curses.html

Also, run this and you'll find your box:

for i in range(255):
    print i, chr(i)

You want to learn about ANSI escape sequences. Here's a brief example:

CSI="\x1B["
print CSI+"31;40m" + "Colored Text" + CSI + "0m"

For more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code

For a block character, try a unicode character like \u2588:

print u"\u2588"

Putting it all together:

print CSI+"31;40m" + u"\u2588" + CSI + "0m"

This somewhat depends on what platform you are on. The most common way to do this is by printing ANSI escape sequences. For a simple example, here's some python code from the blender build scripts:

class bcolors:
    HEADER = '\033[95m'
    OKBLUE = '\033[94m'
    OKGREEN = '\033[92m'
    WARNING = '\033[93m'
    FAIL = '\033[91m'
    ENDC = '\033[0m'
    BOLD = '\033[1m'
    UNDERLINE = '\033[4m'

To use code like this, you can do something like

print bcolors.WARNING + "Warning: No active frommets remain. Continue?" 
      + bcolors.ENDC

This will work on unixes including OS X, linux and windows (provided you use ANSICON, or in Windows 10 provided you enable VT100 emulation). There are ansi codes for setting the color, moving the cursor, and more.

If you are going to get complicated with this (and it sounds like you are if you are writing a game), you should look into the "curses" module, which handles a lot of the complicated parts of this for you. The Python Curses HowTO is a good introduction.

If you are not using extended ASCII (i.e. not on a PC), you are stuck with the ascii characters below 127, and '#' or '@' is probably your best bet for a block. If you can ensure your terminal is using a IBM extended ascii character set, you have many more options. Characters 176, 177, 178 and 219 are the "block characters".

Some modern text-based programs, such as "Dwarf Fortress", emulate text mode in a graphical mode, and use images of the classic PC font. You can find some of these bitmaps that you can use on the Dwarf Fortress Wiki see (user-made tilesets).

The Text Mode Demo Contest has more resources for doing graphics in text mode.

Hmm.. I think got a little carried away on this answer. I am in the midst of planning an epic text-based adventure game, though. Good luck with your colored text!

If you are programming a game perhaps you would like to change the background color and use only spaces? For example:

print " "+ "\033[01;41m" + " " +"\033[01;46m"  + "  " + "\033[01;42m"

For the characters

Your terminal most probably uses Unicode (typically UTF-8 encoded) characters, so it's only a matter of the appropriate font selection to see your favorite character. Unicode char U+2588, "Full block" is the one I would suggest you use.

Try the following:

import unicodedata
fp= open("character_list", "w")
for index in xrange(65536):
    char= unichr(index)
    try: its_name= unicodedata.name(char)
    except ValueError: its_name= "N/A"
    fp.write("%05d %04x %s %s\n" % (index, index, char.encode("UTF-8"), its_name)
fp.close()

Examine the file later with your favourite viewer.

For the colors

curses is the module you want to use. Check this tutorial.

On Windows you can use module 'win32console' (available in some Python distributions) or module 'ctypes' (Python 2.5 and up) to access the Win32 API.

To see complete code that supports both ways, see the color console reporting code from Testoob.

ctypes example:

import ctypes

# Constants from the Windows API
STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE = -11
FOREGROUND_RED    = 0x0004 # text color contains red.

def get_csbi_attributes(handle):
    # Based on IPython's winconsole.py, written by Alexander Belchenko
    import struct
    csbi = ctypes.create_string_buffer(22)
    res = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GetConsoleScreenBufferInfo(handle, csbi)
    assert res

    (bufx, bufy, curx, cury, wattr,
    left, top, right, bottom, maxx, maxy) = struct.unpack("hhhhHhhhhhh", csbi.raw)
    return wattr


handle = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE)
reset = get_csbi_attributes(handle)

ctypes.windll.kernel32.SetConsoleTextAttribute(handle, FOREGROUND_RED)
print "Cherry on top"
ctypes.windll.kernel32.SetConsoleTextAttribute(handle, reset)

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Python termcolor module. Usage is pretty simple:

from termcolor import colored

print colored('hello', 'red'), colored('world', 'green')

Or in Python 3:

print(colored('hello', 'red'), colored('world', 'green'))

It may not be sophisticated enough, however, for game programming and the "colored blocks" that you want to do...

Here's a curses example:

import curses

def main(stdscr):
    stdscr.clear()
    if curses.has_colors():
        for i in xrange(1, curses.COLORS):
            curses.init_pair(i, i, curses.COLOR_BLACK)
            stdscr.addstr("COLOR %d! " % i, curses.color_pair(i))
            stdscr.addstr("BOLD! ", curses.color_pair(i) | curses.A_BOLD)
            stdscr.addstr("STANDOUT! ", curses.color_pair(i) | curses.A_STANDOUT)
            stdscr.addstr("UNDERLINE! ", curses.color_pair(i) | curses.A_UNDERLINE)
            stdscr.addstr("BLINK! ", curses.color_pair(i) | curses.A_BLINK)
            stdscr.addstr("DIM! ", curses.color_pair(i) | curses.A_DIM)
            stdscr.addstr("REVERSE! ", curses.color_pair(i) | curses.A_REVERSE)
    stdscr.refresh()
    stdscr.getch()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    print "init..."
    curses.wrapper(main)

The answer is Colorama for all cross-platform coloring in Python.

A Python 3.6 example screenshot:

My favorite way is with the Blessings library (full disclosure: I wrote it). For example:

from blessings import Terminal

t = Terminal()
print t.red('This is red.')
print t.bold_bright_red_on_black('Bright red on black')

To print colored bricks, the most reliable way is to print spaces with background colors. I use this technique to draw the progress bar in nose-progressive:

print t.on_green(' ')

You can print in specific locations as well:

with t.location(0, 5):
    print t.on_yellow(' ')

If you have to muck with other terminal capabilities in the course of your game, you can do that as well. You can use Python's standard string formatting to keep it readable:

print '{t.clear_eol}You just cleared a {t.bold}whole{t.normal} line!'.format(t=t)

The nice thing about Blessings is that it does its best to work on all sorts of terminals, not just the (overwhelmingly common) ANSI-color ones. It also keeps unreadable escape sequences out of your code while remaining concise to use. Have fun!

You could use CLINT:

from clint.textui import colored
print colored.red('some warning message')
print colored.green('nicely done!')

Get it from GitHub.

If you are using Windows, then here you go!

# display text on a Windows console
# Windows XP with Python27 or Python32
from ctypes import windll
# needed for Python2/Python3 diff
try:
    input = raw_input
except:
    pass
STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE = -11
stdout_handle = windll.kernel32.GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE)
# look at the output and select the color you want
# for instance hex E is yellow on black
# hex 1E is yellow on blue
# hex 2E is yellow on green and so on
for color in range(0, 75):
     windll.kernel32.SetConsoleTextAttribute(stdout_handle, color)
     print("%X --> %s" % (color, "Have a fine day!"))
     input("Press Enter to go on ... ")

note how well the with keyword mixes with modifiers like these that need to be reset (using Python 3 and Colorama):

from colorama import Fore, Style
import sys

class Highlight:
  def __init__(self, clazz, color):
    self.color = color
    self.clazz = clazz
  def __enter__(self):
    print(self.color, end="")
  def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
    if self.clazz == Fore:
      print(Fore.RESET, end="")
    else:
      assert self.clazz == Style
      print(Style.RESET_ALL, end="")
    sys.stdout.flush()

with Highlight(Fore, Fore.GREEN):
  print("this is highlighted")
print("this is not")

https://raw.github.com/fabric/fabric/master/fabric/colors.py

"""
.. versionadded:: 0.9.2

Functions for wrapping strings in ANSI color codes.

Each function within this module returns the input string ``text``, wrapped
with ANSI color codes for the appropriate color.

For example, to print some text as green on supporting terminals::

    from fabric.colors import green

    print(green("This text is green!"))

Because these functions simply return modified strings, you can nest them::

    from fabric.colors import red, green

    print(red("This sentence is red, except for " + \
          green("these words, which are green") + "."))

If ``bold`` is set to ``True``, the ANSI flag for bolding will be flipped on
for that particular invocation, which usually shows up as a bold or brighter
version of the original color on most terminals.
"""


def _wrap_with(code):

    def inner(text, bold=False):
        c = code
        if bold:
            c = "1;%s" % c
        return "\033[%sm%s\033[0m" % (c, text)
    return inner

red = _wrap_with('31')
green = _wrap_with('32')
yellow = _wrap_with('33')
blue = _wrap_with('34')
magenta = _wrap_with('35')
cyan = _wrap_with('36')
white = _wrap_with('37')

I have wrapped @joeld answer into a module with global functions that I can use anywhere in my code.

file: log.py

HEADER = '\033[95m'
OKBLUE = '\033[94m'
OKGREEN = '\033[92m'
WARNING = '\033[93m'
FAIL = '\033[91m'
ENDC = '\033[0m'
BOLD = "\033[1m"

def disable():
    HEADER = ''
    OKBLUE = ''
    OKGREEN = ''
    WARNING = ''
    FAIL = ''
    ENDC = ''

def infog( msg):
    print OKGREEN + msg + ENDC

def info( msg):
    print OKBLUE + msg + ENDC

def warn( msg):
    print WARNING + msg + ENDC

def err( msg):
    print FAIL + msg + ENDC

use as follows:

 import log
    log.info("Hello World")
    log.err("System Error")

Print a string that starts a color/style, then the string, then end the color/style change with '\x1b[0m':

print('\x1b[6;30;42m' + 'Success!' + '\x1b[0m')

Get a table of format options for shell text with following code:

def print_format_table():
    """
    prints table of formatted text format options
    """
    for style in range(8):
        for fg in range(30,38):
            s1 = ''
            for bg in range(40,48):
                format = ';'.join([str(style), str(fg), str(bg)])
                s1 += '\x1b[%sm %s \x1b[0m' % (format, format)
            print(s1)
        print('\n')

print_format_table()

Light-on-dark example (complete)

Dark-on-light example (partial)

generated a class with all the colors using a for loop to iterate every combination of color up to 100, then wrote a class with python colors. Copy and paste as you will, GPLv2 by me:

class colors:
    '''Colors class:
    reset all colors with colors.reset
    two subclasses fg for foreground and bg for background.
    use as colors.subclass.colorname.
    i.e. colors.fg.red or colors.bg.green
    also, the generic bold, disable, underline, reverse, strikethrough,
    and invisible work with the main class
    i.e. colors.bold
    '''
    reset='\033[0m'
    bold='\033[01m'
    disable='\033[02m'
    underline='\033[04m'
    reverse='\033[07m'
    strikethrough='\033[09m'
    invisible='\033[08m'
    class fg:
        black='\033[30m'
        red='\033[31m'
        green='\033[32m'
        orange='\033[33m'
        blue='\033[34m'
        purple='\033[35m'
        cyan='\033[36m'
        lightgrey='\033[37m'
        darkgrey='\033[90m'
        lightred='\033[91m'
        lightgreen='\033[92m'
        yellow='\033[93m'
        lightblue='\033[94m'
        pink='\033[95m'
        lightcyan='\033[96m'
    class bg:
        black='\033[40m'
        red='\033[41m'
        green='\033[42m'
        orange='\033[43m'
        blue='\033[44m'
        purple='\033[45m'
        cyan='\033[46m'
        lightgrey='\033[47m'

YAY! another version

while i find this answer useful, i modified it a bit. this Github Gist is the result

usage

print colors.draw("i'm yellow", bold=True, fg_yellow=True)

in addition you can wrap common usages:

print colors.error('sorry, ')

https://gist.github.com/Jossef/0ee20314577925b4027f

Stupidly simple based on @joeld's answer

class PrintInColor:
    RED = '\033[91m'
    GREEN = '\033[92m'
    YELLOW = '\033[93m'
    LIGHT_PURPLE = '\033[94m'
    PURPLE = '\033[95m'
    END = '\033[0m'

    @classmethod
    def red(cls, s, **kwargs):
        print(cls.RED + s + cls.END, **kwargs)

    @classmethod
    def green(cls, s, **kwargs):
        print(cls.GREEN + s + cls.END, **kwargs)

    @classmethod
    def yellow(cls, s, **kwargs):
        print(cls.YELLOW + s + cls.END, **kwargs)

    @classmethod
    def lightPurple(cls, s, **kwargs):
        print(cls.LIGHT_PURPLE + s + cls.END, **kwargs)

    @classmethod
    def purple(cls, s, **kwargs):
        print(cls.PURPLE + s + cls.END, **kwargs)

Then just

PrintInColor.red('hello', end=' ')
PrintInColor.green('world')

If you are using Django

>>> from django.utils.termcolors import colorize
>>> print colorize("Hello World!", fg="blue", bg='red',
...                 opts=('bold', 'blink', 'underscore',))
Hello World!
>>> help(colorize)

snapshot:

(I generally use colored output for debugging on runserver terminal so I added it.)

_{You can test if it is installed in your machine:
$ python -c "import django; print django.VERSION"
To install it check: How to install Django}

Give it a Try!!

Yet another pypi module that wraps the python 3 print function:

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/colorprint

It's usable in python 2.x if you also from __future__ import print. Here is a python 2 example from the modules pypi page:

from __future__ import print_function
from colorprint import *

print('Hello', 'world', color='blue', end='', sep=', ')
print('!', color='red', format=['bold', 'blink'])

Outputs "Hello, world!" with the words in blue and the exclamation mark bold red and blinking.

Try this simple code

def prRed(prt): print("\033[91m {}\033[00m" .format(prt))
def prGreen(prt): print("\033[92m {}\033[00m" .format(prt))
def prYellow(prt): print("\033[93m {}\033[00m" .format(prt))
def prLightPurple(prt): print("\033[94m {}\033[00m" .format(prt))
def prPurple(prt): print("\033[95m {}\033[00m" .format(prt))
def prCyan(prt): print("\033[96m {}\033[00m" .format(prt))
def prLightGray(prt): print("\033[97m {}\033[00m" .format(prt))
def prBlack(prt): print("\033[98m {}\033[00m" .format(prt))

prGreen("Hello world")

asciimatics provides a portable support for building text UI and animations:

#!/usr/bin/env python
from asciimatics.effects import RandomNoise  # $ pip install asciimatics
from asciimatics.renderers import SpeechBubble, Rainbow
from asciimatics.scene import Scene
from asciimatics.screen import Screen
from asciimatics.exceptions import ResizeScreenError


def demo(screen):
    render = Rainbow(screen, SpeechBubble('Rainbow'))
    effects = [RandomNoise(screen, signal=render)]
    screen.play([Scene(effects, -1)], stop_on_resize=True)

while True:
    try:
        Screen.wrapper(demo)
        break
    except ResizeScreenError:
        pass

Asciicast:

I ended up doing this, I felt it was cleanest:

formatters = {             
    'RED': '\033[91m',     
    'GREEN': '\033[92m',   
    'END': '\033[0m',      
}

print 'Master is currently {RED}red{END}!'.format(**formatters)
print 'Help make master {GREEN}green{END} again!'.format(**formatters)

Define a string that starts a color and a string that ends the color, then print your text with the start string at the front and the end string at the end.

CRED = '\033[91m'
CEND = '\033[0m'
print(CRED + "Error, does not compute!" + CEND)

This produces the following in bash, in urxvt with a Zenburn-style color scheme:

Through experemintation, we can get more colors:

Note: \33[5m and \33[6m are blinking.

This way we can create a full color collection:

CEND      = '\33[0m'
CBOLD     = '\33[1m'
CITALIC   = '\33[3m'
CURL      = '\33[4m'
CBLINK    = '\33[5m'
CBLINK2   = '\33[6m'
CSELECTED = '\33[7m'

CBLACK  = '\33[30m'
CRED    = '\33[31m'
CGREEN  = '\33[32m'
CYELLOW = '\33[33m'
CBLUE   = '\33[34m'
CVIOLET = '\33[35m'
CBEIGE  = '\33[36m'
CWHITE  = '\33[37m'

CBLACKBG  = '\33[40m'
CREDBG    = '\33[41m'
CGREENBG  = '\33[42m'
CYELLOWBG = '\33[43m'
CBLUEBG   = '\33[44m'
CVIOLETBG = '\33[45m'
CBEIGEBG  = '\33[46m'
CWHITEBG  = '\33[47m'

CGREY    = '\33[90m'
CRED2    = '\33[91m'
CGREEN2  = '\33[92m'
CYELLOW2 = '\33[93m'
CBLUE2   = '\33[94m'
CVIOLET2 = '\33[95m'
CBEIGE2  = '\33[96m'
CWHITE2  = '\33[97m'

CGREYBG    = '\33[100m'
CREDBG2    = '\33[101m'
CGREENBG2  = '\33[102m'
CYELLOWBG2 = '\33[103m'
CBLUEBG2   = '\33[104m'
CVIOLETBG2 = '\33[105m'
CBEIGEBG2  = '\33[106m'
CWHITEBG2  = '\33[107m'

Here is the code to generate the test:

x = 0
for i in range(24):
  colors = ""
  for j in range(5):
    code = str(x+j)
    colors = colors + "\33[" + code + "m\\33[" + code + "m\033[0m "
  print(colors)
  x=x+5

Building on @joeld answer, using https://pypi.python.org/pypi/lazyme pip install -U lazyme :

from lazyme.string import color_print
>>> color_print('abc')
abc
>>> color_print('abc', color='pink')
abc
>>> color_print('abc', color='red')
abc
>>> color_print('abc', color='yellow')
abc
>>> color_print('abc', color='green')
abc
>>> color_print('abc', color='blue', underline=True)
abc
>>> color_print('abc', color='blue', underline=True, bold=True)
abc
>>> color_print('abc', color='pink', underline=True, bold=True)
abc

Screenshot:

Some updates to the color_print with new formatters, e.g.:

>>> from lazyme.string import palette, highlighter, formatter
>>> from lazyme.string import color_print
>>> palette.keys() # Available colors.
['pink', 'yellow', 'cyan', 'magenta', 'blue', 'gray', 'default', 'black', 'green', 'white', 'red']
>>> highlighter.keys() # Available highlights.
['blue', 'pink', 'gray', 'black', 'yellow', 'cyan', 'green', 'magenta', 'white', 'red']
>>> formatter.keys() # Available formatter, 
['hide', 'bold', 'italic', 'default', 'fast_blinking', 'faint', 'strikethrough', 'underline', 'blinking', 'reverse']

Note: italic, fast blinking and strikethrough may not work on all terminals, doesn't work on Mac / Ubuntu.

E.g.

>>> color_print('foo bar', color='pink', highlight='white')
foo bar
>>> color_print('foo bar', color='pink', highlight='white', reverse=True)
foo bar
>>> color_print('foo bar', color='pink', highlight='white', bold=True)
foo bar
>>> color_print('foo bar', color='pink', highlight='white', faint=True)
foo bar
>>> color_print('foo bar', color='pink', highlight='white', faint=True, reverse=True)
foo bar
>>> color_print('foo bar', color='pink', highlight='white', underline=True, reverse=True)
foo bar

Screenshot:

sty is similar to colorama, but it's less verbose, supports 8bit and 24bit (rgb) colors, allows you to register your own colors, is really flexible and well documented. If you don't care about compatibility with terminal emulators that are stuck in the 90th and like to use new features, you might want to give it a try.

from sty import fg, bg, ef, rs, Rule

foo = fg.red + 'This is red text!' + fg.rs
bar = bg.blue + 'This has a blue background!' + bg.rs
baz = ef.italic + 'This is italic text' + rs.italic
qux = fg(201) + 'This is pink text using 8bit colors' + fg.rs
qui = fg(255, 10, 10) + 'This is red text using 24bit colors.' + fg.rs

# Add new colors:

fg.orange = Rule('rgb_fg', 255, 150, 50)

buf = fg.orange + 'Yay, Im orange.' + fg.rs


print(foo, bar, baz, qux, qui, buf, sep='\n')

prints:

Demo:

# Pure Python 3.x demo, 256 colors
# Works with bash under Linux

fg = lambda text, color: "\33[38;5;" + str(color) + "m" + text + "\33[0m"
bg = lambda text, color: "\33[48;5;" + str(color) + "m" + text + "\33[0m"

def print_six(row, format):
    for col in range(6):
        color = row*6 + col + 4
        if color>=0:
            text = "{:3d}".format(color)
            print (format(text,color), end=" ")
        else:
            print("   ", end=" ")

for row in range(-1,42):
    print_six(row, fg)
    print("",end=" ")
    print_six(row, bg)
    print()

One easier option would be to use the cprint function from termcolor package.

It also supports %s, %d format of printing