# man > terminal-colors.d(5) [_TERMINAL-COLORS.D_(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/TERMINAL-COLORS.D/5/markdown) File formats [_TERMINAL-COLORS.D_(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/TERMINAL-COLORS.D/5/markdown) ## NAME terminal-colors.d - configure output colorization for various utilities ## SYNOPSIS /etc/terminal-colors.d/_[[name][@term].][type]_ ## DESCRIPTION Files in this directory determine the default behavior for utilities when coloring output. The _name_ is a utility name. The name is optional and when none is specified then the file is used for all unspecified utilities. The _term_ is a terminal identifier (the **TERM **environment variable). The terminal identifier is optional and when none is specified then the file is used for all unspecified terminals. The _type_ is a file type. Supported file types are: ### disable Turns off output colorization for all compatible utilities. ### enable Turns on output colorization; any matching **disable **files are ignored. ### scheme Specifies colors used for output. The file format may be specific to the utility, the default format is described below. If there are more files that match for a utility, then the file with the more specific filename wins. For example, the filename "@xterm.scheme" has less priority than "". The lowest priority are those files without a utility name and terminal identifier (e.g., "disable"). The user-specific _$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/terminal-colors.d_ or _$HOME/.config/terminal-colors.d_ overrides the global setting. ## DEFAULT SCHEME FILES FORMAT The following statement is recognized: **name color-sequence** The **name **is a logical name of color sequence (for example "error"). The names are specific to the utilities. For more details always see the **COLORS **section in the man page for the utility. The **color-sequence **is a color name, ASCII color sequences or escape sequences. ### Color names black, blink, blue, bold, brown, cyan, darkgray, gray, green, halfbright, lightblue, lightcyan, lightgray, lightgreen, lightmagenta, lightred, magenta, red, reset, reverse, and yellow. ### ANSI color sequences The color sequences are composed of sequences of numbers separated by semicolons. The most common codes are: ┌────┬────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ │ 0 │ to restore default color │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 1 │ for brighter colors │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 4 │ for underlined text │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 5 │ for flashing text │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 30 │ for black foreground │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 31 │ for red foreground │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 32 │ for green foreground │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 33 │ for yellow (or brown) │ │ │ foreground │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 34 │ for blue foreground │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 35 │ for purple foreground │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 36 │ for cyan foreground │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 37 │ for white (or gray) foreground │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 40 │ for black background │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 41 │ for red background │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 42 │ for green background │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 43 │ for yellow (or brown) │ │ │ background │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 44 │ for blue background │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 45 │ for purple background │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 46 │ for cyan background │ ├────┼────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ 47 │ for white (or gray) background │ └────┴────────────────────────────────┘ ### Escape sequences To specify control or blank characters in the color sequences, C-style \-escaped notation can be used: ┌────┬────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ │ **\a **│ Bell (ASCII 7) │ ├────┼────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ **\b **│ Backspace (ASCII 8) │ ├────┼────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ **\e **│ Escape (ASCII 27) │ ├────┼────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ **\f **│ Form feed (ASCII 12) │ ├────┼────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ **\n **│ Newline (ASCII 10) │ ├────┼────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ **\r **│ Carriage Return (ASCII 13) │ ├────┼────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ **\t **│ Tab (ASCII 9) │ ├────┼────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ **\v **│ Vertical Tab (ASCII 11) │ ├────┼────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ **\? **│ Delete (ASCII 127) │ ├────┼────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ **\_ **│ Space │ ├────┼────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ **\\ **│ Backslash (\) │ ├────┼────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ **\^ **│ Caret (^) │ ├────┼────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ **\# **│ Hash mark (#) │ └────┴────────────────────────────┘ Please note that escapes are necessary to enter a space, backslash, caret, or any control character anywhere in the string, as well as a hash mark as the first character. For example, to use a red background for alert messages in the output of [**dmesg**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/dmesg/1/markdown), use: **echo 'alert 37;41' >> /etc/terminal-colors.d/dmesg.scheme** ### Comments Lines where the first non-blank character is a # (hash) are ignored. Any other use of the hash character is not interpreted as introducing a comment. ## ENVIRONMENT **TERMINAL_COLORS_DEBUG**=all enables debug output. ## FILES _$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/terminal-colors.d_ _$HOME/.config/terminal-colors.d_ _/etc/terminal-colors.d_ ## EXAMPLE Disable colors for all compatible utilities: **touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/disable** Disable colors for all compatible utils on a vt100 terminal: **touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/@vt100.disable** Disable colors for all compatible utils except [**dmesg**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/dmesg/1/markdown): **touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/disable** **touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/dmesg.enable** ## COMPATIBILITY The **terminal-colors.d **functionality is currently supported by all util-linux utilities which provides colorized output. For more details always see the **COLORS **section in the man page for the utility. ## REPORTING BUGS For bug reports, use the issue tracker at . ## AVAILABILITY **terminal-colors.d **is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive <>. util-linux 2.39.3 2023-10-23 [_TERMINAL-COLORS.D_(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/TERMINAL-COLORS.D/5/markdown)