# gleam-community/ansi
Format text with ANSI escape sequences.
[](https://hex.pm/packages/gleam_community_ansi)
[](https://hexdocs.pm/gleam_community_ansi/)
✨ This project is written in _pure Gleam_ so you can use it anywhere Gleam runs:
Erlang, Elixir, Node, Deno, even [some browsers](https://bit.ly/devtools-console-ansi-support)!
---
## Quickstart
```gleam
import gleam/io
import gleam_community/ansi
pub fn main() {
let greeting = "Hello, " <> ansi.pink("world") <> "!"
greeting
|> ansi.bg_white
|> io.println
}
```
## Installation
`gleam_community` packages are published to [hex.pm](https://hex.pm/packages/gleam_community_ansi)
with the prefix `gleam_community_`. You can add them to your Gleam projects directly:
```sh
gleam add gleam_community_ansi
```
The docs can be found over at [hexdocs.pm](https://hexdocs.pm/gleam_community_ansi).
## ANSI-what?
ANSI escape sequences date back to the 70s as a standard way to format text on
various video text terminals. Since then they have been adopted by many software
terminal emulators and platforms, including some Web browsers, and are a simple
way to format text without platform-specific APIs.
The point of this package is to abstract the specific codes away and give you an
easy-to-understand API for formatting and colouring terminal text. Still, here is
a quick couple of examples of what's happening under the hood.
You can copy these examples straight into your terminal to see them in action!
- Colour text yellow:
```shell
$ echo "\e[33mhello"
```
- Colour the background pink:
```shell
$ echo "\e[45mhello"
```
- Render text italic:
```shell
$ echo "\e[3mhello\e[23m"
```
As you can see, the escape sequences are a bit obscure. Sure, you could hard code
them, or you could use this package!
