jmoudrik / txtstyle

Command-line tool for colorizing log files based on regular expressions (requires Python 2.x)

TxtStyle

TxtStyle is a command line tool colorizing output of console programs. It makes it easier to visually scan log files. Or it can be simply used to make output prettier.

Try it out

git clone git://github.com/armandino/TxtStyle.git
cd TxtStyle

Apply 'example' style to example.log

./txts -n example example.log

Color ifconfig output

ifconfig | ./txts -n ifconfig

Color calendar

cal 2012 | ./txts -n calendar

Color ps output

ps aux | txts -n ps

Install

To install, execute the setup script in the TxtsStyle directory:

sudo python2 setup.py install

(Alternatively, simply put the txts script on the PATH)

Define your own styles

TxtStyle reads styles from a conf file under user's home directory:

~/.txts.conf

There are some example styles defined out of the box. To define your own, add styles to the conf and reference them by name.

For example, add "mystyle":

[Style="mystyle"]
blue: index(0-6)
red: regex("foo")
green bold: regex("bar")
grey on-yellow: regex("baz")

TxtStyle works by styling lines of text using regular expressions and/or string indexes. So index(0-6) highlights a substring of a line and regex("pattern") highlights text matching the pattern.

Save the conf file with "mystyle" and run txts with the -n (or --name) option:

echo "Styling foo, bar, and baz." | txts -n mystyle

TxtStyle configuration supports a small set of named color keys (such as red, blue, yellow) and an extended set of numeric keys (from 1 to 255). To print available keys use the -p option:

txts -p

Other usage examples

Highlight text using the -r (or --regex) option. For example

echo "A Foo and a Bar" | txts -r "Foo|Bar"

will color both Foo and Bar in red. If you use the -r option multiple times, each of the specified regexps will have a different color, as in:

echo "A Foo and a Bar" | txts -r Foo -r Bar

You can also specify multiple regexps with the -R (or --regex-rest) option with the very same result:

echo "A Foo and a Bar" | txts -R Foo Bar

TxtStyle does not apply styles if output is piped to another command. To force color if the output is piped, use --color-always option:

ps aux | txts -n ps --color-always | less -R

Print basic help

txts -h