In what context - terminal, GUI, CGI, printer? On what OS? How you do it depends on these factors. Color::Output or Curses::UI::Color may be what you are looking for but who knows? We need more information to point you in the right direction.

ok i apologize i'm using print() on a terminal (linux)

Term::ANSIColor will do what you want in the easiest possible way. The docs and source explain how printing ANSI escape sequences causes your terminal to do (color) stuff

$cat color.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
use Term::ANSIColor qw(:constants);
print BOLD, BLUE, "This text is in bold blue.\n", RESET;
print RED, "This text is red.\n", RESET;

$ ./color.pl
This text is in bold blue.
This text is red.
$

To set the AUTORESET feature so you can loose the RESET tokens set $Term::ANSIColor::AUTORESET = 1 just after the use. RTFS to see the available constants. Don't use BLINK :o)

cheers

tachyon

#define RESET        0
#define BRIGHT         1
#define DIM        2
#define UNDERLINE     3
#define BLINK        4
#define REVERSE        7
#define HIDDEN        8

#define BLACK         0
#define RED        1
#define GREEN        2
#define YELLOW        3
#define BLUE        4
#define MAGENTA        5
#define CYAN        6
#define    WHITE        7

void textcolor(int attr, int fg, int bg);
int main()
{    textcolor(RESET, RED, BLACK);    
    printf("In color");
    textcolor(RESET, WHITE, BLACK);    
    return 0;
}

void textcolor(int attr, int fg, int bg)
{    char command[13];

    /* Command is the control command to the terminal */
    sprintf(command, "%c[%d;%d;%dm", 0x1B, attr, fg + 30, bg + 40);
    printf("%s", command);
}
[download]

very nice, here's the same program in perl


use constant RESET     => 0;
use constant BRIGHT    => 1;
use constant DIM       => 2;
use constant UNDERLINE => 3;
use constant BLINK     => 4;
use constant REVERSE   => 7;
use constant HIDDEN    => 8;

use constant BLACK   => 0;
use constant RED     => 1;
use constant GREEN   => 2;
use constant YELLOW  => 3;
use constant BLUE    => 4;
use constant MAGENTA => 5;
use constant CYAN    => 6;
use constant WHITE   => 7;

sub textcolor($$$);

print textcolor( RESET, RED, BLACK ), "In color\n",
  textcolor( RESET, WHITE, BLACK );

sub textcolor($$$) {
    my ( $attr, $fg, $bg ) = @_;
    #Command is the control command to the terminal
    my $command = sprintf( "%c[%d;%d;%dm", 0x1B, $attr, $fg + 30, $bg 
++ 40 );
    return sprintf( "%s", $command );
}
[download]

I believe there is a need to print the newline character after the reset, not before, or in other words, do not let color attributes span unnecessary lines, and those last lines dealing with $command are redundant.

sub textcolor ($$$);

print textcolor (RESET, RED, BLACK),
      'In color',
      textcolor (RESET, WHITE, BLACK),
      "\n";

sub textcolor ($$$) 
{
  my ($attr, $fg, $bg) = @_;
  sprintf "\e[%d;%d;%dm", $attr, $fg + 30, $bg + 40;
}
[download]