bash: print stderr in red color

Question

Is there a way to make bash display stderr messages in red color?

Answer 1

command 2> >(while read line; do echo -e "\e[01;31m$line\e[0m" >&2; done)

Answer 2

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hilite/

Answer 3

You can also check out stderred: https://github.com/sickill/stderred

Answer 4

I've made a wrapper script that implements Balázs Pozsár's answer in pure bash. Save it in your $PATH and prefix commands to colorize their output.

    #!/bin/bash

    if [ $1 == "--help" ] ; then
        echo "Executes a command and colorizes all errors occured"
        echo "Example: `basename ${0}` wget ..."
        echo "(c) o_O Tync, ICQ# 1227-700, Enjoy!"
        exit 0
        fi

    # Temp file to catch all errors
    TMP_ERRS=$(mktemp)

    # Execute command
    "$@" 2> >(while read line; do echo -e "\e[01;31m$line\e[0m" | tee --append $TMP_ERRS; done)
    EXIT_CODE=$?

    # Display all errors again
    if [ -s "$TMP_ERRS" ] ; then
        echo -e "\n\n\n\e[01;31m === ERRORS === \e[0m"
        cat $TMP_ERRS
        fi
    rm -f $TMP_ERRS

    # Finish
    exit $EXIT_CODE

Answer 5

Create a function in a bash script:

color()(set -o pipefail;"$@" 2>&1>&3|sed $'s,.*,\e[31m&\e[m,'>&2)3>&1

Use it like this:

$ color command -program -args

It will show the command's stderr in red.

Keep reading for an explanation of how it works. There are some interesting features demonstrated by this command.

• color()... — Creates a bash function called color.
• set -o pipefail — This is a shell option that preserves the error return code of a command whose output is piped into another command. This is done in a subshell, which is created by the parentheses, so as not to change the pipefail option in the outer shell.
• "$@" — Executes the arguments to the function as a new command. "$@" is equivalent to "$1" "$2" ...
• 2>&1 — Redirects the stderr of the command to stdout so that it becomes sed's stdin.
• >&3 — Shorthand for 1>&3, this redirects stdout to a new temporary file descriptor 3. 3 gets routed back into stdout later.
• sed ... — Because of the redirects above, sed's stdin is the stderr of the executed command. Its function is to surround each line with color codes.
• $'...' A bash construct that causes it to understand backslash-escaped characters
• .* — Matches the entire line.
• \e[31m — The ANSI escape sequence that causes the following characters to be red
• & — The sed replace character that expands to the entire matched string (the entire line in this case).
• \e[m — The ANSI escape sequence that resets the color.
• >&2 — Shorthand for 1>&2, this redirects sed's stdout to stderr.
• 3>&1 — Redirects the temporary file descriptor 3 back into stdout.

Answer 6

You can use a function like this

 #!/bin/sh

color() {
      printf '\033[%sm%s\033[m\n' "$@"
      # usage color "31;5" "string"
      # 0 default
      # 5 blink, 1 strong, 4 underlined
      # fg: 31 red,  32 green, 33 yellow, 34 blue, 35 purple, 36 cyan, 37 white
      # bg: 40 black, 41 red, 44 blue, 45 purple
      }
string="Hello world!"
color '31;1' "$string"

Answer 7

I have a slightly modified version of O_o Tync's script. I needed to make these mods for OS X Lion and it's not perfect because the script sometimes completes before the wrapped command does. I've added a sleep but I'm sure there's a better way.

#!/bin/bash

   if [ $1 == "--help" ] ; then
       echo "Executes a command and colorizes all errors occured"
       echo "Example: `basename ${0}` wget ..."
       echo "(c) o_O Tync, ICQ# 1227-700, Enjoy!"
       exit 0
       fi

   # Temp file to catch all errors
   TMP_ERRS=`mktemp /tmp/temperr.XXXXXX` || exit 1

   # Execute command
   "$@" 2> >(while read line; do echo -e "$(tput setaf 1)$line\n" | tee -a $TMP_ERRS; done)
   EXIT_CODE=$?

   sleep 1
   # Display all errors again
   if [ -s "$TMP_ERRS" ] ; then
       echo -e "\n\n\n$(tput setaf 1) === ERRORS === "
       cat $TMP_ERRS
   else
       echo "No errors collected in $TMP_ERRS"
   fi
   rm -f $TMP_ERRS

   # Finish
   exit $EXIT_CODE