Console.Color

Standard library enum · Nested in Console

Console.Color names the sixteen colors a terminal can show. Pass one to Console.style for the color of the text or of its background, or to Console.panel for the color of its border. Like any enum, a color is written with its type’s name in front, so it can’t be confused with anything else:

const alert = Console.style(" ERROR ", foreground: Console.Color.white, background: Console.Color.red)
print("#{alert} the file is missing")

Output

 ERROR  the file is missing

On a terminal, the first word is white on a red background. Where there is no terminal, the output is the same text without styling, as above.

The colors are the terminal’s own, so exactly what blue looks like depends on the terminal and the theme its owner chose. Leave a color out, or give nothing, to use the terminal’s default.

A color prints as its full name, can be compared with ==, and can be a dictionary key:

const color: Console.Color = Console.Color.bright_red
print(color)
print(color == Console.Color.red)

Output

Console.Color.bright_red
false

The colors

Standard	Bright
Console.Color.black	Console.Color.bright_black
Console.Color.red	Console.Color.bright_red
Console.Color.green	Console.Color.bright_green
Console.Color.yellow	Console.Color.bright_yellow
Console.Color.blue	Console.Color.bright_blue
Console.Color.magenta	Console.Color.bright_magenta
Console.Color.cyan	Console.Color.bright_cyan
Console.Color.white	Console.Color.bright_white

The functions Console.red, green, and the rest give the eight standard colors as text. The bright colors, and every background color, are reached only through Console.style. bright_black is what many terminals show as gray.

Choosing colors

Color is best for a small number of things that deserve notice, such as errors in red or successes in green. Don’t rely on it alone: the same text may reach someone who can’t see it, or end up in a log file, so say ERROR in words too, as in the example above.