Terminal String Styling

1.1.6 · active · verified Fri Apr 17

Style is a simple and fast Python library for styling terminal output with colors and formatting using ANSI escape codes. It provides a clean API for foreground colors, background colors, and text effects. The current version is 1.1.6, and it maintains a stable, active release cadence.

Common errors

```
NameError: name 'fg' is not defined
```
cause Attempting to use `fg` (or `bg`, `ef`, `style`) without importing it from the `style` library.

fix Ensure you import the necessary components: `from style import style, fg, bg, ef`.
```
AttributeError: module 'style.fg' has no attribute 'RED'
```
cause You are trying to access a color or effect attribute using uppercase letters (e.g., `fg.RED`) instead of the correct lowercase form.

fix Change the attribute name to its lowercase equivalent, for example, `fg.red`, `bg.blue`, or `ef.bold`.
```
My terminal output is not colored or styled, just plain text or strange characters.
```
cause The terminal emulator you are using may not support ANSI escape codes, or the output is being redirected (e.g., to a file) which often disables styling. On older Windows versions, `colorama` (which `style` uses) might not be fully initialized or the terminal itself lacks sufficient support.

fix Ensure you are using a modern terminal emulator (e.g., Windows Terminal, iTerm2, Alacritty, gnome-terminal). If on Windows, ensure `colorama` is installed (`pip install colorama`) as `style` relies on it for cross-platform compatibility. Avoid redirecting output to files if you expect styled text.

Warnings

gotcha When applying styles using the `style()` function, inner `style()` calls effectively create new styled segments that are concatenated. This means that a parent style will not 'wrap' a child styled segment as it implicitly resets before and after each `style()` call.
Fix: Apply styles to individual components and concatenate them. For example, `print(style('Hello ', fg.red) + style('World!', fg.blue))` for distinct styling, rather than `print(style('Hello ' + style('World!', fg.blue), fg.red))` which won't apply red to 'World!'.
gotcha Styles (colors and effects) are applied by their lowercase attribute names (e.g., `fg.red`, `ef.bold`). Using uppercase attribute names (e.g., `fg.RED`) will result in an `AttributeError`.
Fix: Always use lowercase attribute names for colors and effects as defined in the `fg`, `bg`, and `ef` objects.

Install

pip install style Install stable version

Imports

style, fg, bg, ef
```
from style import style, fg, bg, ef
```

Quickstart

This example demonstrates basic usage of `style` to apply foreground color, background color, and text effects like bold or underline to a string. The `style` function returns the styled string, which can then be printed.

from style import style, fg, bg, ef

print(style("Hello, World!", fg.red, bg.blue, ef.bold))
print(style("Underlined text.", ef.underline))
print(style("Green background.", bg.green))

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