README.rst

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Colorama
========

Makes ANSI escape character sequences (for producing colored terminal text and
cursor positioning) work under MS Windows.

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`Github for source <https://github.com/tartley/colorama>`_ |
`Colorama for enterprise on Tidelift <https://github.com/tartley/colorama/blob/master/ENTERPRISE.md>`_

If you find Colorama useful, please |donate| to the authors. Thank you!

Installation
------------

Tested on CPython 2.7, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9 and 3.10 and Pypy 2.7 and 3.8.

No requirements other than the standard library.

.. code-block:: bash

    pip install colorama
    # or
    conda install -c anaconda colorama

Description
-----------

ANSI escape character sequences have long been used to produce colored terminal
text and cursor positioning on Unix and Macs. Colorama makes this work on
Windows, too, by wrapping ``stdout``, stripping ANSI sequences it finds (which
would appear as gobbledygook in the output), and converting them into the
appropriate win32 calls to modify the state of the terminal. On other platforms,
Colorama does nothing.

This has the upshot of providing a simple cross-platform API for printing
colored terminal text from Python, and has the happy side-effect that existing
applications or libraries which use ANSI sequences to produce colored output on
Linux or Macs can now also work on Windows, simply by calling
``colorama.just_fix_windows_console()`` (since v0.4.6) or ``colorama.init()``
(all versions, but may have other side-effects – see below).

An alternative approach is to install ``ansi.sys`` on Windows machines, which
provides the same behaviour for all applications running in terminals. Colorama
is intended for situations where that isn't easy (e.g., maybe your app doesn't
have an installer.)

Demo scripts in the source code repository print some colored text using
ANSI sequences. Compare their output under Gnome-terminal's built in ANSI
handling, versus on Windows Command-Prompt using Colorama:

.. image:: https://github.com/tartley/colorama/raw/master/screenshots/ubuntu-demo.png
    :width: 661
    :height: 357
    :alt: ANSI sequences on Ubuntu under gnome-terminal.

.. image:: https://github.com/tartley/colorama/raw/master/screenshots/windows-demo.png
    :width: 668
    :height: 325
    :alt: Same ANSI sequences on Windows, using Colorama.

These screenshots show that, on Windows, Colorama does not support ANSI 'dim
text'; it looks the same as 'normal text'.

Usage
-----

Initialisation
..............

If the only thing you want from Colorama is to get ANSI escapes to work on
Windows, then run:

.. code-block:: python

    from colorama import just_fix_windows_console
    just_fix_windows_console()

If you're on a recent version of Windows 10 or better, and your stdout/stderr
are pointing to a Windows console, then this will flip the magic configuration
switch to enable Windows' built-in ANSI support.

If you're on an older version of Windows, and your stdout/stderr are pointing to
a Windows console, then this will wrap ``sys.stdout`` and/or ``sys.stderr`` in a
magic file object that intercepts ANSI escape sequences and issues the
appropriate Win32 calls to emulate them.

In all other circumstances, it does nothing whatsoever. Basically the idea is
that this makes Windows act like Unix with respect to ANSI escape handling.

It's safe to call this function multiple times. It's safe to call this function
on non-Windows platforms, but it won't do anything. It's safe to call this
function when one or both of your stdout/stderr are redirected to a file – it
won't do anything to those streams.

Alternatively, you can use the older interface with more features (but also more
potential footguns):

.. code-block:: python

    from colorama import init
    init()

This does the same thing as ``just_fix_windows_console``, except for the
following differences:

- It's not safe to call ``init`` multiple times; you can end up with multiple
  layers of wrapping and broken ANSI support.

- Colorama will apply a heuristic to guess whether stdout/stderr support ANSI,
  and if it thinks they don't, then it will wrap ``sys.stdout`` and
  ``sys.stderr`` in a magic file object that strips out ANSI escape sequences
  before printing them. This happens on all platforms, and can be convenient if
  you want to write your code to emit ANSI escape sequences unconditionally, and
  let Colorama decide whether they should actually be output. But note that
  Colorama's heuristic is not particularly clever.

- ``init`` also accepts explicit keyword args to enable/disable various
  functionality – see below.

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).

Most users should depend on ``colorama >= 0.4.6``, and use
``just_fix_windows_console``. The old ``init`` interface will be supported
indefinitely for backwards compatibility, but we don't plan to fix any issues
with it, also for backwards compatibility.

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.

.. code-block:: python

    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:

.. code-block:: python

    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 <https://pypi.org/project/termcolor/>`_
the fabulous `Blessings <https://pypi.org/project/blessings/>`_,
or the incredible `_Rich <https://pypi.org/project/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:

SIMILARLY, do not send PRs adding the generation of new ANSI types to Colorama.
We are only interested in converting ANSI codes to win32 API calls, not
shortcuts like the above to generate ANSI characters.

.. code-block:: python

    from colorama import just_fix_windows_console
    from termcolor import colored

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

    # 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:

    .. code-block:: python

        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:

    .. code-block:: python

        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.

Status & Known Problems
-----------------------

I've personally only tested it on Windows XP (CMD, Console2), Ubuntu
(gnome-terminal, xterm), and OS X.

Some valid ANSI sequences aren't recognised.

If you're hacking on the code, see `README-hacking.md`_. ESPECIALLY, see the
explanation there of why we do not want PRs that allow Colorama to generate new
types of ANSI codes.

See outstanding issues and wish-list:
https://github.com/tartley/colorama/issues

If anything doesn't work for you, or doesn't do what you expected or hoped for,
I'd love to hear about it on that issues list, would be delighted by patches,
and would be happy to grant commit access to anyone who submits a working patch
or two.

.. _README-hacking.md: README-hacking.md

License
-------

Copyright Jonathan Hartley & Arnon Yaari, 2013-2020. BSD 3-Clause license; see
LICENSE file.

Professional support
--------------------

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Thanks
------

See the CHANGELOG for more thanks!

* Marc Schlaich (schlamar) for a ``setup.py`` fix for Python2.5.
* Marc Abramowitz, reported & fixed a crash on exit with closed ``stdout``,
  providing a solution to issue #7's setuptools/distutils debate,
  and other fixes.
* User 'eryksun', for guidance on correctly instantiating ``ctypes.windll``.
* Matthew McCormick for politely pointing out a longstanding crash on non-Win.
* Ben Hoyt, for a magnificent fix under 64-bit Windows.
* Jesse at Empty Square for submitting a fix for examples in the README.
* User 'jamessp', an observant documentation fix for cursor positioning.
* User 'vaal1239', Dave Mckee & Lackner Kristof for a tiny but much-needed Win7
  fix.
* Julien Stuyck, for wisely suggesting Python3 compatible updates to README.
* Daniel Griffith for multiple fabulous patches.
* Oscar Lesta for a valuable fix to stop ANSI chars being sent to non-tty
  output.
* Roger Binns, for many suggestions, valuable feedback, & bug reports.
* Tim Golden for thought and much appreciated feedback on the initial idea.
* User 'Zearin' for updates to the README file.
* John Szakmeister for adding support for light colors
* Charles Merriam for adding documentation to demos
* Jurko for a fix on 64-bit Windows CPython2.5 w/o ctypes
* Florian Bruhin for a fix when stdout or stderr are None
* Thomas Weininger for fixing ValueError on Windows
* Remi Rampin for better Github integration and fixes to the README file
* Simeon Visser for closing a file handle using 'with' and updating classifiers
  to include Python 3.3 and 3.4
* Andy Neff for fixing RESET of LIGHT_EX colors.
* Jonathan Hartley for the initial idea and implementation.