24-Bit RGB Colors in ANSI Escape Codes#

Structure#

The 24-bit RGB color space represents a much broader array of colors. Simply use any number from 0 to 255 to set each of the red r, green g, and blue b colors in the sequences 38;2;r;g;b for text color and 38;2;r;g;b for background color:

Code	Placement
`\x1b[38;2;r;g;bm`	Text
`\x1b[48;2;r;g;bm`	Background

Sequence Parts#

For example, the color code for light blue rgb(173, 216, 230) can be broken down into the following parts:

Part	`\x1b[`	`38;2;` `48;2;`	`173;216;230`	`m`
Description	Starts sequence, also called the Control Sequence Introducer (CSI).	Select foreground text or background color.	RGB color code where each number is between 0-255.	Ends sequence and calls the graphics function Select Graphic Rendition (SGR).

Disclaimer

Not all terminals support 24-bit colors in RGB, HSL, or Hex. If your terminal does support such advanced colors, read on.

Examples#

For example, \x1b[38;2;142;194;21m is a lime green foreground text color, and \x1b[48;2;194;21;139m is a rosa background color. When wrapped with \x1b[0m to reset the color, you can write this:

Python
print("This is \x1b[38;2;142;194;21mLIME GREEN\x1b[0m text")
print("This is \x1b[48;2;194;21;139mROSA\x1b[0m background")

How it appears in the terminal:

% This is LIME GREEN text
% This is ROSA background

How to Use RGB Colors with Colorist

Instead of using raw ANSI escape codes, it's convenient to use Colorist to generate them while keeping the code readable.

Simply use the ColorRGB class for foreground text colors or the BgColorRGB class for background colors. For example:

Python
from colorist import ColorRGB, BgColorRGB

lime_green = ColorRGB(142, 194, 21)
rosa = BgColorRGB(194, 21, 139)

print(f"This is {lime_green}LIME GREEN{lime_green.OFF} text")
print(f"This is {rosa}ROSA{rosa.OFF} background")

How it appears in the terminal:

% This is LIME GREEN text
% This is ROSA background

In Colorist, the RGB color space is used to furthermore support definition of colors as HSL or Hex.