Colouring a bash print statement

Asked Jan 27 '23 at 23:47

Active Jan 27 '23 at 23:47

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I have the following bash print statement which I want to colour blue.

local -r sgr="$( tput sgr0 )"
local -r wht="$( tput bold; tput setaf 15 )"
local -r blu="$( tput bold; tput setaf 39 )"

printf ' \u2263  %-*s%*s  \u2263\n'  "$cl" "${1:0:cl}"  "$cr" "${2:0:cr}"

asked Jan 27 '23 at 23:47

Vera

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Just prefix it with `"$blu"`. – choroba Jan 27 '23 at 23:51
The behaviour becomes different whether the format statement in enclosed by single or double quotes. What goes on using one or the other? – Vera Jan 28 '23 at 00:00
Single quotes don't expand variables. – choroba Jan 28 '23 at 00:03
Add another `%s` and a `"$blu"` argument perhaps? – konsolebox Jan 28 '23 at 00:07
Just double quotes in the format string was enough. – Vera Jan 28 '23 at 00:37
The format string should _always_ be single-quoted. If you want variable data in your output from `printf`, insert a format specifier in the format string (e.g. `%s`) and supply the variable (`"$blu"`) as the argument corresponding that format string. – Kusalananda Jan 28 '23 at 00:51
Why the insistence about single quotes? – Vera Jan 28 '23 at 01:02
See e.g. [Using \`printf\` to print variable containing \`%\` percent sign results in "bash: printf: \`p': invalid format character"](https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/519315) – Kusalananda Jan 28 '23 at 06:31

Colouring a bash print statement

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