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Tags: howto command-line ascii terminal-color-codes-stripper ansi sed stackoverflow.com

Clipped on: 2023-02-03

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Remove ANSI color codes from a text file using bash

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Asked 9 years, 3 months ago

Modified 1 year, 2 months ago

Viewed 13k times

I have a bash script that runs and outputs to a text file however the colour codes it uses are also included what i'd like to know is how to remove them from the file, ie

^[[38;1;32mHello^[[39m
^[[38;1;31mUser^[[39m

so I just want to be left with Hello and User

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edited Oct 10, 2013 at 17:14

GreyCat

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asked Oct 10, 2013 at 13:09

Lurch

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Related answer using python: stackoverflow.com/questions/14693701/…
– GreyCat
Oct 10, 2013 at 17:15
2

Duplicate: unix.stackexchange.com/questions/4527/…
– GreyCat
Oct 10, 2013 at 17:16

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3 Answers

Sorted by:

sed -r "s/x1B[(([0-9]{1,2})?(;)?([0-9]{1,2})?)?[m,K,H,f,J]//g" file_name

this command removes the special characters and color codes from the file

these are some of ANSI codes: ESC[#;#H or ESC[#;#f moves cursor to line #, column # ESC[2J clear screen and home cursor ESC[K clear to end of line,

note in case of clear code there is neither number nor semicolon ;

agree with below comment: if the numbers are more than 2 digit kindly use this:

sed -r "s/x1B[(([0-9]+)(;[0-9]+)*)?[m,K,H,f,J]//g" filename

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edited Jul 1, 2015 at 21:21

Jasen

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answered Jun 19, 2015 at 12:54

sandy_1111

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there is no guarantee on the number of number parts in the code, those for setting colour can have upto 5 numbers without redundancy. the codes for setting other features (eg linux consile bell frequency) can have more than 2 digits in a row.
– Jasen
Jul 1, 2015 at 5:22
agree with you Jasen :-)
– sandy_1111
Jul 1, 2015 at 11:17
3

The commas in [m,K,H,f,J] are superfluous, right?
– Tuetschek
May 2, 2018 at 13:22

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My solution:

... | sed $'s/e[[0-9;:]*[a-zA-Z]//g'

The colon is there to support escapes for some old terminal types.

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answered Feb 6, 2019 at 6:10

Wiimm

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What's the leading "$" for?
– fstamour
Mar 10, 2021 at 13:23
Ah, it's for the 'e' to be interpolated: stackoverflow.com/questions/11966312/…
– fstamour
Mar 10, 2021 at 14:47
bash supports c-like escaping with $'...'
– Wiimm
Dec 2, 2022 at 11:00
Tested this successfully with: echo $'033'"[38;1;32mHello"$'033'"[39m" (from Jasen's comment here )
– Shadi
Jan 25 at 21:21

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Does this solve the issue?

$ echo "^[[38;1;32mHello^[[39m" | sed -e 's/^[[[0-9;]{2,}m//g'
Hello

cheers!!

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answered Oct 25, 2013 at 19:14

MacUsers

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No, it doesn't, because ^[ represents the ASCII Escape character (Control-[, code 27).
– Armali
Oct 30, 2013 at 9:35
@Armali: don't understand your point. According to the OP's requirement, it should work. Can you post an example where it doesn't work? Cheers!!
– MacUsers
Oct 30, 2013 at 15:51
Yes... TERM=xterm tput setf 1|sed -e 's/^[[[0-9;]{2,}m//g'|hexdump -C
– Armali
Oct 31, 2013 at 7:36
I don't think that what the OP is after.
– MacUsers
Oct 31, 2013 at 11:29
3

I think you mean echo $'033'"[38;1;32mHello"$'033'"[39m" | sed -e 's/^[[[0-9;]{2,}m//g' (what you wrote can't be pasted successfully) ,and no it doesn't work.
– Jasen
Jul 1, 2015 at 5:17