Formatting output text in Bash

We can use the -e flag with echo to have greater control over the output of text. -e allows us to use linebreaks, tabs and other formattings within a string.

Output text in columns

echo -e  "Name\t\tNumber"; echo -e "Thomas\t\t123";

Name		Number
Thomas		123

Break text over several lines

echo -e "This text\nbreaks over\nthree lines"

This text
breaks over
three lines

Colour outputs

echo -e "\033[31;40mColoured Text\033[0m"

The coloured section is prepended by \033[ and ended with [0m. The foreground colour is given first, and then the background colour.

We can also change the text style. We do this by adding an extra value after the first square bracket:

echo -e "\033[4;31;40mColoured Text\033[0m"

This underlines the output.

We can create a script that simplifies the construction of colour-formatted text, e.g

ulinered="\033[4;31;40m"
red="\033[31;40m"
none="\033[0m"

echo -e $ulinered"ERROR:"$none$red" Something went wrong."$none
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