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Shell Escape Sequences

Basic Escape Sequences

  • \n — Newline
  • \t — Tab
  • \\ — Backslash
  • \" — Double quote
  • \' — Single quote
  • \a — Bell (alert)
  • \b — Backspace
  • \r — Carriage return
  • \v — Vertical tab
  • \f — Form feed

ANSI Escape Codes

Color codes

Color Foreground Background
Black 30 40
Red 31 41
Green 32 42
Yellow 33 43
Blue 34 44
Magenta 35 45
Cyan 36 46
White 37 47
default color 39 49

:::info We can use the code like

\033[31m

\x1b[31m

\e[31m

\E[31m

All this are similar or equivalent :::

Text Styles

Code Effect Example
0 Reset \033[0m
1 Bold/Bright \033[1m
2 Faint \033[2m
3 Italic \033[3m
4 Underline \033[4m
5/6 Blink \033[5m or \033[6m
7 Reverse/Inverse \033[7m
8 Invisible \033[8m
9 Strikethrough \033[9m
21 Bold off \033[21m
22 Normal intensity \033[22m
23 Not italic \033[23m
24 Not underlined \033[24m
27 Reverse off \033[27m

Terminal Manupulation

  • \033[2J : Clear entire screen
  • \033[1J : Clear from cursor to beginning of screen
  • \033[0J : Clear from cursor to end of screen
  • \033[0m : Reset all styles (critical after styling)
  • \033[?1049h : Switch to alternate buffer
  • \033[?1049l : Return to main buffer

Symbols using escape sequences

Symbol Unicode Code Example Escape in Bash Name/Description
© U+00A9 \u00A9 Copyright Sign
® U+00AE \u00AE Registered Sign
™ U+2122 \u2122 Trademark Sign
☺ U+263A \u263A White Smiling Face
☹ U+2639 \u2639 White Frowning Face
☀ U+2600 \u2600 Sun With Rays
☁ U+2601 \u2601 Cloud
☂ U+2602 \u2602 Umbrella
☃ U+2603 \u2603 Snowman
⚡ U+26A1 \u26A1 High Voltage (Lightning)
♥ U+2665 \u2665 Black Heart Suit (filled heart)
★ U+2605 \u2605 Black Star
☆ U+2606 \u2606 White Star
☑ U+2611 \u2611 Ballot Box With Check
✓ U+2713 \u2713 Check Mark
✗ U+2717 \u2717 Ballot X
✮ U+272E \u272E Black Four-Pointed Star
☎ U+260E \u260E Black Telephone
☘ U+2618 \u2618 Shamrock
⚘ U+2698 \u2698 Flower
☯ U+262F \u262F Yin Yang
☸ U+2638 \u2638 Wheel of Dharma
☮ U+262E \u262E Peace Symbol
☢ U+2622 \u2622 Radioactive
☣ U+2623 \u2623 Biohazard
U+00B6 \u00B6 Pilcrow (Paragraph symbol)
§ U+00A7 \u00A7 Section Sign
♻ U+267B \u267B Recycling Symbol
♂ U+2642 \u2642 Male Sign
♀ U+2640 \u2640 Female Sign

Using tput command

Task Command Example Description
Clear screen tput clear Clears the terminal screen
Move cursor tput cup 5 10 Moves cursor to row 5, column 10
Bold text tput bold Enables bold text
Underline text tput smul Starts underlining
Remove underline tput rmul Stops underlining
Reset formatting tput sgr0 Resets all text styles and colors
Set foreground color tput setaf 2 Sets text color (e.g., 2 = green)
Set background color tput setab 4 Sets background color (e.g., 4 = blue)
Get terminal width tput cols Returns number of columns
Get terminal height tput lines Returns number of rows
Ring terminal bell tput bel Triggers a beep or visual bell
Hide cursor tput civis Makes cursor invisible
Show cursor tput cnorm Makes cursor visible again
Initialize terminal tput init Applies terminal initialization settings
Reset terminal tput reset Resets terminal to default state
Print terminal name tput longname Displays full name of current terminal type

Examples

To get alert sound

echo -e "\a"

tput bel

To write bold or bright

echo -e "\x1b[1m\nThis is bold Text\x1b[0m \n"

To write italic text

echo -e "\x1b[3m\nThis is italic Text\x1b[0m \n"