Escape Sequence

An escape sequence is a combination of characters that signifies a command for the terminal rather than a literal combination of characters. In terminals that respond to ANSI character sequences, the escape character has the ASCII value of hexadecimal 1B, octal 33, or decimal 27. A symbol for the escape character can be defined as follows:

esc[0,7] = 27

or:

esc[0,8]=%x1B

Control Sequences

Examples in the following tables use the following symbols:

esc[0,7] = 27
text="Text to be displayed"

Character attributes

Description	Syntax	Example
Bold	[1m	write sys$output "''esc'[1m''text'''esc'[m"
Underscore	[4m	write sys$output "''esc'[4m''text'''esc'[m"
Blink	[5m	write sys$output "''esc'[5m''text'''esc'[m"
Reverse video	[7m	write sys$output "''esc'[7m''text'''esc'[m"
All attributes off	[0m	write sys$output "''esc'[0m''text'''esc'[m"

Line Size

The attributes below are valid only for the current line.

Description	Syntax	Example
Double-height top half	#3	Used with #4 to display double-height text: $ pipe w "''esc'#3''text'''esc'#3" ; w "''esc'#4''text'''esc'#4"
Double-height bottom half	#4	Used with #3 to display double-height text: $ pipe w "''esc'#3''text'''esc'#3" ; w "''esc'#4''text'''esc'#4"
Single width/single height	#5	$ w "''esc'#5''text'''esc'#5"
Double width/double height	#6	$ w "''esc'#6''text'''esc'#6"

Erasing

Description	Syntax	Example
Erases from cursor to end of line	[K
Erases from the beginning of line to cursor	[1K	$ write sys$output "''esc'[1K"
Erases the line containing cursor	[2K	$ write sys$output "''esc'[2K"
Erases from the cursor to end of screen	[J	$ write sys$output "''esc'[J"
From beginning of screen to cursor	1J	$ write sys$output "''esc'1J"
Erase the entire screen	[2J	$ write sys$output "''esc'[2J"

Cursor Positioning

Description	Syntax	Example
Move the cursor to line Pl and column Pc	[Pl;PcH or ESC[Pl;Pcf	$ write sys$output "''esc'[0;0H"
Cursor up Pn positions	[PnA	$ write sys$output "''esc'[1A''text'"
Cursor down Pn positions	[PnB	$ write sys$output "''esc'[1B''text'"
Save cursor and attributes	7	$ write sys$output "''esc'[1B''esc'7"
Cursor forward Pn spaces	[PnC	$ write sys$output "''esc'[2C''text'"
Cursor backward Pn spaces	[PnD	$ write sys$output "''esc'[2C''text'"
Next line	E	$ write sys$output "''text'''esc'E''text'"
Restore cursor and attributes	ESC 8	$ write sys$output "''esc'[1B''esc'8"

Scrolling Region

The scrolling region can be established with escape code [Pt;Pbr, where Pt is the top line of the scrolling region and Pb is the bottom line.

Colors

Description	Syntax	Example
Reset (resets the color to default)	[0m	$ write sys$output "''esc'[30m''text'''esc'[0m"
Black	[30m	$ write sys$output "''esc'[30m''text'''esc'[0m"
Red	[31m	$ write sys$output "''esc'[31m''text'''esc'[0m"
Green	[32m	$ write sys$output "''esc'[32m''text'''esc'[0m"
Yellow	[33m	$ write sys$output "''esc'[33m''text'''esc'[0m"
Blue	[34m	$ write sys$output "''esc'[34m''text'''esc'[0m"
Magenta	[35m	$ write sys$output "''esc'[35m''text'''esc'[0m"
Cyan	[36m	$ write sys$output "''esc'[36m''text'''esc'[0m"
White	[37m	$ write sys$output "''esc'[37m''text'''esc'[0m"