Echo colored text in a shell script?

Question

As part of a shell script I'm working on, I want to be able to print colored (preferably red) text to the Terminal window, to provide warnings to the user.
How can I code in echoing colored text?
(I did some googling and couldn't find anything that seemed to apply to what I want to do.)
Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The following is a shell script that displays the terminal colors and the escape sequences used to generate them:
#!/bin/sh
# colors.esc - display the terminal colors and the escape sequences that
# generate them. "Blink" is _NOT_ shown, as it is a very
# annoying effect, and should be avoided at all costs in normal
# daily uses.
# Usage: colors.esc [12 character or less display string]
# Bob Harris
E=$(printf ' ') # escape <E>
R="${E}[0m" # reset <E>[0m
typeset dsp_str=""
typeset dsp_txt
typeset fg_text
typeset bg_text
if [[ $# != 0 ]]; then
dsp_str=$(printf "%12.12s" "$*")
fi
color=(Black Red Green Yellow Blue Magenta Cyan White)
for bg in "" 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 # for each background color
do
b=$bg && [[ X$b != X ]] && b="4$b;" # deal with no background color ""
echo " ------------ ----bold---- -underline-- --reverse---"
for fg in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 # for each foreground color
do
f="3$fg" # setup foreground color
line=""
for a in "" 1 4 7 # for each attribute
do
[[ X$a != X ]] && a=";$a" # deal with no attribute ""
if [[ -z "$dsp_str" ]]; then
dsp_txt=$(printf "%12s" "<E>[${b}${f}${a}m") # build esc text
else
dsp_txt="$dsp_str" # use supplied text
fi
line="${line}${E}[${b}${f}${a}m${dsp_txt}${R} " # build entry
done
fg_text=$(printf "%-7s" ${color[$fg]}) # translate foreground color
bg_text=$(printf "%-9s" "Bg${color[$bg]}") # translate background color
[[ X$b = X ]] && bg_text=$(printf "%-9s" " ") # no bckgnd color
line="$bg_text $fg_text $line" # build final display line
echo "${line% }" # display the colorized line
done
done
echo " ------------ ----bold---- -underline-- --reverse---"
bg_text=$(printf "%-9s" " ")
fg_text=$(printf "%-7s" "Reset")
dsp_txt=$(printf "%12s" "<E>[0m")
line="$bg_text $fg_text $dsp_txt" # build final display line
echo "${line% }"