The above answers ('bout ANSIColor) are all you need really. Just for the record I would like to submit a short subroutine that I threw together a long time ago. I use it from time to time in my projects.

(Of course Term::ANSIColor isn't that hard to use in it self, but I like to be able to write short colorcodes). Here goes:

Note: The second parameter to colorparse() should be set to a true value if the output is to be used with Term::ReadLine.

use strict;
use Term::ANSIColor qw/:constants/;
use Carp;

print colorparse("%CThis is bright/bold cyan%n and this is normal text
+.\n");
print colorparse("%RC%Yo%Bl%Mo%Cr%n rocks!\n");

sub colorparse {
  my $txt = shift;
  my $is_prompt = shift || 0;
  if (not defined $txt) {
    croak("error: missing parameter\nusage: colorparse(\$txt,\$is_prom
+pt)");
  }
  my %transtbl = (
    k => RESET . BLACK ,
    K => RESET . BLACK . BOLD ,
    r => RESET . RED ,
    R => RESET . RED . BOLD ,
    g => RESET . GREEN ,
    G => RESET . GREEN . BOLD ,
    y => RESET . YELLOW ,
    Y => RESET . YELLOW . BOLD ,
    b => RESET . BLUE ,
    B => RESET . BLUE . BOLD ,
    m => RESET . MAGENTA ,
    M => RESET . MAGENTA . BOLD ,
    c => RESET . CYAN ,
    C => RESET . CYAN . BOLD ,
    w => RESET . WHITE ,
    W => RESET . WHITE . BOLD ,
    n => RESET
  );
  if ($is_prompt) {
    $txt =~ s/%([kKrRgGyYbBmMcCwWn])/\001\001$transtbl{$1}\001\002/g;
  } else {
    $txt =~ s/%([kKrRgGyYbBmMcCwWn])/$transtbl{$1}/g;
  }
  $txt =~ s/%%/%/g;
  return($txt);
}
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