ekko - Simple bash echo replacement with colour

Bored of tiresome, unreadable echo in your bash scripts? Replace them with ekko to bring a bit of colour to your terminal!

Just clone, source ./bin/ekko.sh in your .bashrc and start generating simple ANSI coloured output!

See it for yourself!

Boring echo

Thrilling, vibrant, readable ekko

Learn ekko in 10 seconds or less

if you're writing stuff like this in your scripts:

echo ATTENTION!! shutting down nodes may cause data loss -----
echo \# Please ensure that backups have finished
echo \# Nodes will be drained in order
echo Primary: nodeA.example.com
echo Secondaries: nodeB.example.com
echo "    nodeC.example.com"
echo "    nodeD.example.com"
echo Logs: log.example.com
echo export WORKING_HOME=$WORKING_HOME \# Use local storage directory
echo export DRYRUN= \# If set, show commands without executing
echo sudo node-killer --drain \&\& \# Blocks until drained
echo "  sudo" node-killer --force \# Kills all nodes permanently

Just start writing stuff like this instead! Replace echo with ekko <MARKER> to describe how to colour your text.

ekko banner_error "ATTENTION" shutting down nodes may cause data loss
ekko \# Please ensure that backups have finished
ekko \# Nodes will be drained in order
ekko kvs Primary nodeA.example.com \
    Secondaries nodeB.example.com \
    "" nodeC.example.com \
    "" nodeD.example.com \
    Logs log.example.com
ekko \#_export_35 WORKING_HOME "Use local storage directory"
ekko \#_export_35 DRYRUN "" "If set, show commands without executing."
ekko \#_warn_35 sudo node-killer --drain \&\& "Blocks until drained"
ekko \#_warn_35 "  sudo" node-killer --force "Kills all nodes permanently"

In this example, the following <MARKER>s are used:

• banner_error starts a bright red banner with dashes across the terminal width. (error by itself would have the same output without the dashes).
• \# dims the output slightly as a comment.
• kvs separates even and odd arguments into keys and values, aligning them in tidy columns.
• export prints a colourful export statement, using the actual environment value or a supplied value.
• #_export_35 with the \#_ prefix uses the last argument as a comment, and the _35 suffix says where to align the comments.
• #_warn_35 enhances the warn semantic with a similarly aligned comment. Just like error is red, warn message is yellow and ok is green. There's also msg, msg1, msg2, and msg3.

I can't remember all that!

It's a good thing there's built-in ekko_help:

and ekko_help_examples terminal capture

Usage

ekko [MARKER] This is my message!

The simple markers assign some colour and bold to the message. The first argument is set to bold and attached back to the rest.

• msg or msg1, msg2, msg3: Information (cyan, blue, magenta)
• error: Error (red)
• warn: Warning (yellow)
• ok: Success (green)
• bold or b: Only sets bold with no colour change
• Adding banner_ prefix to a simple marker fills the rest of the line with ----

ekko banner_msg "Step 1:" Reticulating splines
ekko warn "" A message with no bold.
ekko ok Success!
ekko b "Normal text" with the first token bold
ekko Normal text yo

Comments are entirely in bold and prepended with a #.

• comment or \#: Adds a #, and sets the entire line to bold grey.
• Adding comment_ prefix to a simple marker adds the last argument as a # comment
• A comment_ prefix and _<NN> suffix aligns the comments at column <NN>

ekko comment_warn_35 Attention: possible data loss "Check the"
ekko comment_b_35 sudo mkfs -t vfat /dev/sdX1 "partition"
ekko comment Follow the prompts here

Some other markers generate different, preformatted output.

• kv Key/Value: prints the first word of the message right-aligned to column 30 (violet) followed by the rest (default colour).
• kv_<NN> As above, with the first argument right aligned to column <NN>.
• kvs Key/Values: Prints a list of keys and values, autoaligning the key names at the longest width.
• export prints an export line with the first word of the message. If there is more to the message text, the rest is used as the value. Otherwise, the actual environment variable corresponding to the first work is printed.
• env_not_null verifies that the first word of the message is set as an environment variable and prints nothing if true. If false, an error message is printed using the rest of the message text and the return code $? is set to 1 (error).

ekko kv host $HOSTNAME
ekko kv port 8080
ekko export HOSTNAME
ekko export PORT 80 # Does not set the environment variable!
ekko env_not_null PORT 8080

You can also use the exec or no-exec markers to execute other commands.

• exec prints the message text (grey background) before trying to execute it as a command, and writes the time it took afterwards. The EKKO_LAST_EXEC_TIME is set to this value in milliseconds. The return code is the same as the command.
• no-exec just prints the command in the same style without trying to execute it.
• Commands are executed with bash -c "$*". Simple commands should work, but you will probably be unhappy with aliases and non-exported functions!

ekko exec find /tmp
ekko no-exec find /tmp

If you are on a system with the notify-send command like gnome, you can execute two types of popups.

• popup Sends the message to the notification center directly.
• remind Starts a background process that sleeps for N seconds before displaying. If the argument is non-numeric, try to parse it into seconds using the linux date command.

ekko popup Splines have been reticulated
ekko remind $((5 * 60)) Five minute break is finished
ekko remind 25min Pompodoro #1 is ended
ekko remind "1 day 1 hour" Water your plants

"Building" and Testing

There are some some BATS unit tests included with the project.

# Clone including submodules to include the BATS framework and testing tools.
git clone --recurse-submodules git@github.com:RyanSkraba/ekko.git
# Alternatively, update the submodules in place.
git submodule update --init --recursive

# Run the tests
test/ekko.bats