How to enable ANSI escape codes in Windows cmd?

Question

What is the simplest way to enable ANSI escape codes (eg. colored output) in Windows cmd?

Dennis Williamson · Accepted Answer · 2010-01-25 16:17:51Z

up vote 2 down vote accepted

CMD does not support ANSI escape sequences. You'll have to use COMMAND.COM. What is it that you're trying to do?

Edit:

You can get less for Windows and use:

less -R filename

edited Jan 25 '10 at 16:17

answered Jan 25 '10 at 14:58

Dennis Williamson
28.1k43367

I'm trying to view Rails log files that use ANSI codes for colored output – Jakub Arnold Jan 25 '10 at 15:29

Gerald Combs · Answer 2 · 2010-01-25 17:02:40Z

up vote 2 down vote

You might try Cygwin's bash. Terminal colorization is something that Just Works under Cygwin.

answered Jan 25 '10 at 17:02

Gerald Combs
3,638518

2 Answers