The cli-color npm package is a library for adding color and formatting to text in Node.js command line applications. It provides a simple API to style strings that appear in the terminal, making it easier to produce visually distinct and organized output.
Text coloring
This feature allows you to change the color of the text output in the terminal. The example shows how to make text appear in red.
const clc = require('cli-color');
console.log(clc.red('This text is red'));Text formatting
This feature enables text formatting such as making text bold, underlined, etc. The example demonstrates how to make text bold.
const clc = require('cli-color');
console.log(clc.bold('This text is bold'));Background coloring
This feature allows you to set the background color of the text. The example shows white text on a blue background.
const clc = require('cli-color');
console.log(clc.bgBlue.white('White text on blue background'));Chalk is a popular npm package similar to cli-color with a chainable API that allows for easier and more readable syntax. Chalk supports modern terminal features and has a broader color palette compared to cli-color.
Colors is another npm package that adds colors to Node.js console output. It extends String.prototype to add color methods directly to strings, which can be less modular and potentially messier than cli-color's functional approach.
Colors, formatting and other goodies for the console. This package won't mess with built-ins and provides neat way to predefine formatting patterns, see below.
$ npm install cli-color
Usage:
var clc = require("cli-color");
Output colored text:
console.log(clc.red("Text in red"));
Styles can be mixed:
console.log(clc.red.bgWhite.underline("Underlined red text on white background."));
Styled text can be mixed with unstyled:
console.log(clc.red("red") + " plain " + clc.blue("blue"));
Styled text can be nested:
console.log(clc.red("red " + clc.blue("blue") + " red"));
Best way is to predefine needed stylings and then use it:
var error = clc.red.bold;
var warn = clc.yellow;
var notice = clc.blue;
console.log(error("Error!"));
console.log(warn("Warning"));
console.log(notice("Notice"));
Note: No colors or styles are output when NO_COLOR env var is set
Supported are all ANSI colors and styles:
Styles will display correctly if font used in your console supports them.
| Foreground | Background | |
|---|---|---|
| black | bgBlack |  |
| red | bgRed |  |
| green | bgGreen |  |
| yellow | bgYellow |  |
| blue | bgBlue |  |
| magenta | bgMagenta |  |
| cyan | bgCyan |  |
| white | bgWhite |  |
| Foreground | Background | |
|---|---|---|
| blackBright | bgBlackBright |  |
| redBright | bgRedBright |  |
| greenBright | bgGreenBright |  |
| yellowBright | bgYellowBright |  |
| blueBright | bgBlueBright |  |
| magentaBright | bgMagentaBright |  |
| cyanBright | bgCyanBright |  |
| whiteBright | bgWhiteBright |  |
Not supported on Windows and some terminals. However if used in not supported environment, the closest color from basic (16 colors) palette is chosen.
Usage:
var msg = clc.xterm(202).bgXterm(236);
console.log(msg("Orange text on dark gray background"));
Color table:
Terminal can be cleared with clc.reset
process.stdout.write(clc.reset);
Entire screen
process.stdout.write(clc.erase.screen);
Left portion of a screen
process.stdout.write(clc.erase.screenLeft);
Right portion of a screen
process.stdout.write(clc.erase.screenRight);
Current line
process.stdout.write(clc.erase.line);
Right portion of current line
process.stdout.write(clc.erase.lineRight);
Left portion of current line
process.stdout.write(clc.erase.lineLeft);
Move cursor x columns and y rows away. Values can be positive or negative, e.g.:
process.stdout.write(clc.move(-2, -2)); // Move cursors two columns and two rows back
Absolute move. Sets cursor position at x column and y row
process.stdout.write(clc.move.to(0, 0)); // Move cursor to first row and first column in terminal window
Move cursor up n rows
process.stdout.write(clc.move.up(2));
Move cursor down n rows
process.stdout.write(clc.move.down(2));
Move cursor right n columns
process.stdout.write(clc.move.right(2));
Move cursor left n columns
process.stdout.write(clc.move.left(2));
Move cursor n lines forward if n is positive, otherwise n lines backward, and place it at line beginning
process.stdout.write(clc.move.lines(2));
Move cursor to top of a screen
process.stdout.write(clc.move.top);
Move cursor to bottom of a screen
process.stdout.write(clc.move.bottom);
Move cursor to begin of a line
process.stdout.write(clc.move.lineBegin);
Move cursor to end of a line
process.stdout.write(clc.move.lineEnd);
Returns terminal width
Returns terminal height
Slice provided string with preservation of eventual ANSI formatting
var clc = require("cli-color");
var str = clc.bold("foo") + "bar" + clc.red("elo");
var sliced = clc.slice(str, 1, 7); // Same as: clc.bold('oo') + 'bar' + clc.red('e')
Strips ANSI formatted string to plain text
var ansiStrip = require("cli-color/strip");
var plain = ansiStrip(formatted);
Get actual length of ANSI-formatted string
var clc = require("cli-color");
var str = clc.bold("foo") + "bar" + clc.red("elo");
clc.getStrippedLength(str); // 9
Create a text-graphical art. Within styleConf, string replacements needs to be defined, which are then used to convert text to styled graphical text.
var text = ".........\n" + ". Hello .\n" + ".........\n";
var style = { ".": clc.yellowBright("X") };
process.stdout.write(clc.art(text, style));
Outputs aligned table of columns.
data is expected to be an array (or other iterable structure) of rows, where each row is also an array (or other iterable structure) of content to display.
Supported options:
sep: Custom colums separator (defaults to |)columns: Per column customizations, as e.g. [{ align: 'right' }, null, { align: 'left' }]:
align: Possible options: 'left', 'right (efaults to 'left')var clc = require("cli-color");
process.stdout.write(
clc.columns([
[clc.bold("First Name"), clc.bold("Last Name"), clc.bold("Age")],
["John", "Doe", 34],
["Martha", "Smith", 20],
["Jan", "Kowalski", 30]
])
);
/* Outputs:
First Name | Last Name | Age
John | Doe | 34
Martha | Smith | 20
Jan | Kowalski | 30
*/
Writes throbber string to write function at given interval. Optionally throbber output can be formatted with given format function
var setupThrobber = require("cli-color/throbber");
var throbber = setupThrobber(function (str) { process.stdout.write(str); }, 200);
throbber.start();
// at any time you can stop/start throbber
throbber.stop();
$ npm test
To report a security vulnerability, please use the Tidelift security contact. Tidelift will coordinate the fix and disclosure.
clc.art module, and significant improvements to tests coverageclc.slice functionality, and introduction of clc.getStrippedLength utility2.0.3 (2022-07-04)
Maintenance Improvements
FAQs
Colors, formatting and other tools for the console
The npm package cli-color receives a total of 2,558,364 weekly downloads. As such, cli-color popularity was classified as popular.
We found that cli-color demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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