ANSI Color Specific RGB Sequence Bash

Question

I know that in bash terminals a reliable way to change color is using ANSI escape sequences. For example:

echo -e \"\\033[0;31mbrown text\\033[0;00m\"
         


        

Answer 1

This does exist, but instead of the 16777216 (256^3) colors that the OP was looking for, there are 216 (6^3) equally distributed colors, in a larger set of 256 colors. Example:

echo -e "\033[38;5;208mpeach\033[0;00m"

This will output a pleasing sort of peach colored text.

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Taking apart this command: \033[38;5;208m

The \033 is the escape code. The [38; directs command to the foreground. If you want to change the background color instead, use [48; instead. The 5; is just a piece of the sequence that changes color. And the most important part, 208m, selects the actual color.

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There are 3 sets of colors that can be found in the 256 color sequence for this escape. The first set is the basic "candy" color set, or values 0-15. Then there is a cube of distributed colors, from 16-231. Lastly there is a detailed grayscale set from 232-255.

You can find a table with all of these values here: http://bitmote.com/index.php?post/2012/11/19/Using-ANSI-Color-Codes-to-Colorize-Your-Bash-Prompt-on-Linux#256%20(8-bit)%20Colors