Bash on Snow Leopard doesn't obey terminal colours

With the new version of Snow Leopard, OS X upgraded the bash version to GNU bash, version 3.2.48(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin10.0).

Now, my .bashrc sets the following settings:

# Colors
export TERM=xterm-color
export GREP_OPTIONS='--color=auto' GREP_COLOR='1;32'
export CLICOLOR=1 
export LSCOLORS=ExGxFxDxCxHxHxCbCeEbEb

# Setup some colors to use later in interactive shell or scripts
export COLOR_NC='\e[0m' # No Color
export COLOR_WHITE='\e[1;37m'
export COLOR_BLACK='\e[0;30m'
export COLOR_BLUE='\e[0;34m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_BLUE='\e[1;34m'
export COLOR_GREEN='\e[0;32m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_GREEN='\e[1;32m'
export COLOR_CYAN='\e[0;36m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_CYAN='\e[1;36m'
export COLOR_RED='\e[0;31m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_RED='\e[1;31m'
export COLOR_PURPLE='\e[0;35m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_PURPLE='\e[1;35m'
export COLOR_BROWN='\e[0;33m'
export COLOR_YELLOW='\e[1;33m'
export COLOR_GRAY='\e[1;30m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_GRAY='\e[0;37m'

The colours are used later on for output. This used to work in previous version of OSX but now my output not cooperating.

Some ideas that have not worked.

• Switching Terminal.app from 64-bit to 32-bit.

Solution 1:

The answer was actually much simpler. Rather than using \e for the escape character, use \033 instead. So it goes from

export COLOR_NC='\e[0m' # No Color
export COLOR_WHITE='\e[1;37m'
export COLOR_BLACK='\e[0;30m'
export COLOR_BLUE='\e[0;34m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_BLUE='\e[1;34m'
export COLOR_GREEN='\e[0;32m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_GREEN='\e[1;32m'
export COLOR_CYAN='\e[0;36m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_CYAN='\e[1;36m'
export COLOR_RED='\e[0;31m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_RED='\e[1;31m'
export COLOR_PURPLE='\e[0;35m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_PURPLE='\e[1;35m'
export COLOR_BROWN='\e[0;33m'
export COLOR_YELLOW='\e[1;33m'
export COLOR_GRAY='\e[1;30m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_GRAY='\e[0;37m'

to:

# Setup some colors to use later in interactive shell or scripts
export COLOR_NC='\033[0m' # No Color
export COLOR_WHITE='\033[1;37m'
export COLOR_BLACK='\033[0;30m'
export COLOR_BLUE='\033[0;34m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_BLUE='\033[1;34m'
export COLOR_GREEN='\033[0;32m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_GREEN='\033[1;32m'
export COLOR_CYAN='\033[0;36m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_CYAN='\033[1;36m'
export COLOR_RED='\033[0;31m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_RED='\033[1;31m'
export COLOR_PURPLE='\033[0;35m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_PURPLE='\033[1;35m'
export COLOR_BROWN='\033[0;33m'
export COLOR_YELLOW='\033[1;33m'
export COLOR_GRAY='\033[1;30m'
export COLOR_LIGHT_GRAY='\033[0;37m'

Solution 2:

My Terminal is showing colours.

Try using something like:

PS1='\[\033[01;31m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;33m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '

And see if the colours appear.

Solution 3:

Since the colors are non-printable, using \[ & \] at either end will prevent backspacing and line-wrapping from breaking.

export COLOR_NC='\[\033[0m\]' # No Color
export COLOR_WHITE='\[\033[1;37m\]'
export COLOR_BLACK='\[\033[0;30m\]'
export COLOR_BLUE='\[\033[0;34m\]'
export COLOR_LIGHT_BLUE='\[\033[1;34m\]'
export COLOR_GREEN='\[\033[0;32m\]'
export COLOR_LIGHT_GREEN='\[\033[1;32m\]'
export COLOR_CYAN='\[\033[0;36m\]'
export COLOR_LIGHT_CYAN='\[\033[1;36m\]'
export COLOR_RED='\[\033[0;31m\]'
export COLOR_LIGHT_RED='\[\033[1;31m\]'
export COLOR_PURPLE='\[\033[0;35m\]'
export COLOR_LIGHT_PURPLE='\[\033[1;35m\]'
export COLOR_BROWN='\[\033[0;33m\]'
export COLOR_YELLOW='\[\033[1;33m\]'
export COLOR_GRAY='\[\033[1;30m\]'
export COLOR_LIGHT_GRAY='\[\033[0;37m\]'