Levels of color used in a Windows bat script

Type echos or echos.bat in the root folder of this repository, and you get a demo:

Add log-level-like colored headers to your script output:

Clone batcolors into your bat script project and:

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

rem https://stackoverflow.com/questions/112055/what-does-d0-mean-in-a-windows-batch-file
for %%i in ("%~dp0.") do SET "script_dir=%%~fi"
set script_dir=%script_dir%\..
@echo %script_dir%

call %script_dir%\batcolors\echos_macros.bat

%_ok%      "Result matches what was expected"
%_info%    "Describe what is about to be done"
%_warning% "Result was not expected, but non-blocking"
%_error%   "Result is wrong"
%_fatal%   "Program must stop and exit" 1

REM final echo should not be displayed:
echo done

%_error% will not exit your script, while %_fatal% will.
Any line after %_fatal% will not be executed (unless FATALNOEXIT is set. See below)

If you do not want ANSI escape code, simply set NOCOLORS=1.

Then unset it (set NOCOLORS=), and the next %_ok/info/...% call will display colors again.

Setting ECHOS_OFF=1 will disable all echos (no OK, INFO, WARNING, TASK or ERROR message), except the FATAL one.

Then unset it (set ECHOS_OFF=), and the next %_ok/info/...% call will display messages again.

If you don't want to exit on a %_fatal% call, set FATALNOEXIT=1 first.

Then, unset it (set FATALNOEXIT=), and the next %_fatal% call will exit the script.

If you want to display a multi-line message, use ECHOS_PRE_FILE and ECHOS_POST_FILE referencing a file full pathname with a multi-line message in it.

(
echo PRE OK line 1: Write a multi-line message in a file 'xxx.txt'
echo PRE OK line 2: the name of that file is yours to chose
echo PRE OK line 3: '_' means empty line
echo _
) > "pre_FILE.txt"
set "ECHOS_PRE_FILE=pre_FILE.txt"
%_ok% " An OK message with a prefix message"
REM don't forget to reset the variable
set "ECHOS_PRE_FILE=

If you use call %script_dir%\batcolors\echos_macros.bat export (with the export parameter), it keeps the current context, and does not use setlocal enabledelayedexpansion.

Useful when the script is supposed to be called by another one (which has already called echos_macros.bat), but you want to call/test that script in standalone:

if "%script_dir%"=="" (
    for %%i in ("%~dp0.") do SET "script_dir=%%~fi"
    call !script_dir!\batcolors\echos_macros.bat export
)

• if not called in standalone, then script_dir would not be empty: no need to call echos_macros.bat again)
• if called in standalone, then script_dir would be empty: call echos_macros.bat, again to export its macro definitions in your current content.

If your script includes a @echo on, having ECHO_STATE=ON first will make sure the colored echo does not reset the echo mode, keeping it ON.

cmd /V /C "set "ECHO_STATE=ON" && call your_script.bat"

LICENSE