ANSI Color Codes – What?

Years ago, when the console was the most common user interface and graphical UIs were rare and began to evolve, ANSI color codes had their great time. So it is not astonishing, that – in times where the console gets more and more significance – ANSI color codes are getting back to live.

Since I never was in the need to print colored text to the console, so why bother? I never spent a thought. But the last days I was even more and more annoyed of output like this:

2023-01-25T15:47:20.9853447Z module.sync_client.sync_plan.internesPersonalPhoto: Refreshing state
2023-01-25T15:47:20.9854980Z module.sync_client.sync_plan.betreuerzuordnung: Refreshing state
2023-01-25T15:47:20.9855981Z module.sync_client.sync_plan.internesPersonal: Refreshing state
2023-01-25T15:47:20.9856931Z module.sync_client.sync_plan.externesPersonalDokument: Refreshing state
2023-01-25T15:47:20.9857878Z module.sync_client.sync_plan.geschaeftsstelle: Refreshing state
2023-01-25T15:47:20.9858841Z module.sync_client.sync_plan.einsatz: Refreshing state
2023-01-25T15:47:21.2562867Z module.sync_client.sync_plan.freizeitausgleich: Refreshing state
2023-01-25T15:47:21.2702837Z module.sync_client.sync_plan.externesPersonal: Refreshing state
2023-01-25T15:47:21.2704130Z module.sync_client.sync_plan.taetigkeitsnachweis: Refreshing state
2023-01-25T15:47:21.9790854Z module.sync_client.sync_plan.kontingent: Refreshing state
2023-01-25T15:47:21.9791752Z module.sync_client.sync_plan.externesPersonalPhoto: Refreshing state
2023-01-25T15:47:21.9969315Z module.sync_client.sync_plan.fehlzeit2cloud: Refreshing state

What is that noise after the time stamp? These are ANSI color codes and the output medium is not able to convert these codes! Here are some examples how to generate these codes:

//Two different ways to create ANSI Color Codes
char esc = (char)0x1B;
Console.WriteLine($"Hello, {esc}[91mcolor\u001B[92mcodes");

Write-Host "`e[91mcolor`e[92mcode"

You can find an overview of existing color codes (and more escape sequences) e.g. on Christian Petersens (fnky) github account