Python module to enable ANSI colors for stdout on Windows?

Question

I am looking for a Python module that would add ANSI support under Windows.

This means that after importing the module, if you output ANSI escaped strings, they will appear accordingly.

Answer 1

There are two python modules that are able to do this colorama and tendo.ansiterm module, which was originally written for waf.

By initial tests indicate that colorama is more mature, even if it requires two lines of code instead of one.

import sys
try:
   import colorama
   colorama.init()
except:
   try:
       import tendo.ansiterm
   except:
       pass

sys.stdout.write"\033[33mYellow Submarine"
sys.stderr.write"\033[31mred, red , wine!"

Now, both will work normally but if you try to redirect only one of the stderr or stdout, ansiterm will output ANSI codes to screen and redirected output.

I'm not sure but I suspect that the correct behavior is to strip ANSI codes when the output si not a tty, you don't want to see ANSI escapes in log files.

Answer 2

Your best bet is probably to use the colorama module.

In fact, I believe that the Windows console does not support ANSI colors natively. colorama solves this difficulty by intercepting ANSI sequences and performing the appropriate Windows color change calls. This way, your code can be quite portable, as it can print colors in the same way both on Windows and in ANSI-compliant terminals.

Answer 3

You can also use colorful which use colorama for portability.