AnsiToHTML

Small library to convert ANSI Styling codes to HTML using phoenix_html. The library is not solely intented for use with Phoenix and can be easily used without it.

Installation

The package can be installed by adding ansi_to_html to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [{:ansi_to_html, "~> 0.5.0"}]
end

Why and how should I use this?

I wrote this package so I could have all the nice things that Elixir's Kernel.inspect/2 does for my productivity, all from the comfort of my Phoenix.View.

Generating a HTML String:

This is useful if you're not using Phoenix:

iex> AnsiToHTML.generate_html("\e[34m[\e[0m\e[32m:hello\e[0m\e[34m]\e[0m")
"<pre><span style=\"color: blue;color: green;color: blue;\">[:hello]</span></pre>"

Generating Phoenix HTML Tags:

This is useful if you actually are using Phoenix and want to render in your views:

iex> AnsiToHTML.generate_phoenix_html("\e[34m[\e[0m\e[32m:hello\e[0m\e[34m]\e[0m")
{:safe,
  [60, "pre", [], 62,
    [[60, "span",
      [[32, "style", 61, 34, "color: blue;color: green;color: blue;", 34]], 62,
      ["[", ":hello", "]"], 60, 47, "span", 62]], 60, 47, "pre", 62]}

Custom Themes

You can use the AnsiToHTML.Theme struct to map ANSI codes to html. The struct defaults to a <pre> tag containing common tags such as <strong>, <i>, <u>, or otherwise <span> tags with inline styles.

Phoenix View Helper

You can define a helper function in your view which uses AnsiToHTML to convert a pretty Kernel.inspect/2 to html:

defmodule MyApp.Web do
  # ...

  def view do
    quote do
      # ...

      # See the docs on Inspect.Opts for more information
      # https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/Inspect.Opts.html
      @syntax_colors [string: :green, map: :blue]
      def pretty_inspect(variable), do: AnsiToHTML.generate_phoenix_html inspect variable, pretty: true, syntax_colors: @syntax_colors

    end
  end

# ...

end

Now you can use the helper function in your templates:

<%= pretty_inspect @conn %>
<%= pretty_inspect @assigns %>