Print in terminal with colors using python ?

Question

I want to print in the terminal with colors ? how can I do that in python ?

Another questions what is the best character that when it is printed it look like a box [brick] ?

I want to print colored blocks, it is part of game :)

Answer 1

For windows you cannot print to console with colors unless your using the win32api.

For linux its as simple as using print, with the escape sequences outlined here:

Colors

For the characther 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:

#

Answer 2

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)

Answer 3

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

CSI="\x1B["
reset=CSI+"m"
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"

Answer 4

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'

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

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 unix, linux including macOS, and window (provided you enable ansi.sys). 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!

Answer 5

If you are programming a game you may would like to change the background color and use spaces only :)

you may try something like

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

Answer 6

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.

Answer 7

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)

Answer 8

There's also a module called WConIO that does much the same thing. Unfortunately the author will probably not be able to build a Python 2.6 version any time soon.

Answer 9

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')

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

Answer 10

How about this

Answer 11

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)

Answer 12

I have created a cross-platform package to print colored terminal text from Python:

http://pypi.python.org/pypi/colorama

It works by making ANSI escape character sequences work on Windows.

So once you have called colorama.init(), you can print ANSI escape sequences to create colored terminal output. You do this manually (print '/033[2m') or using colorama's shorthand (print Fore.RED) or using an existing library like termcolor. On Linux and Macs, this will work just the same as it always has. On Windows, these characters get intercepted when they reach sys.stdout.write(), and converted into win32 calls instead.

It only works for colors and dim/bright text, not for moving the cursor nor clearing the screen or all the other things ANSI characters can do.

Feedback much appreciated.

Answer 13

the answer is http://pypi.python.org/pypi/colorama for all cross-platform coloring in python

Answer 14

Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters#Block_elements There is a list of block elements(It requires Unicode). Or use ascii character 24 or 26.