Rich is a Python library for writing rich text (with color and style) to the terminal. It lets you display advanced content such as tables, markdown, and syntax-highlighted code.
So, why is this useful? Well, if you're not using a tool like Rich, the output of your code on the terminal can be a little boring and difficult to understand. If you want to make it clearer and prettier, you probably want to use Rich – and you've come to the right place to learn how to do it.
How to Install Rich
You can install Rich with pip as:
pip install RichTo know what all Rich can do, you can type the following command in the terminal:
python -m richNow you can see that we can do quite a lot of things with Rich. Let's try a few of them out to see how they work.
How to Rich print in Python
Rich has the capability to highlight the output according to the datatype. We'll import the alternative python -m rich2 function from the Rich library which takes the same arguments as the built-in python -m rich2.
To avoid confusion with the built-in python -m rich2 function, we'll import python -m rich2 from the python -m rich6 library as python -m rich7.
from rich import print as rprint nums_list = [1, 2, 3, 4] rprint(nums_list) nums_tuple = (1, 2, 3, 4) rprint(nums_tuple) nums_dict = {'nums_list': nums_list, 'nums_tuple': nums_tuple} rprint(nums_dict) bool_list = [True, False] rprint(bool_list)Output:
Do you see how the different data types are highlighted with different colors? This can help us a lot while debugging.
How to Rich inspect in Python
If you use the built-in python -m rich8 function for viewing the documentation of a library, you'll see a boring output.
import rich print(help(rich))Output:
Rich has an function which can generate a report on any Python object. It is a fantastic debug aid, and a good example of the output that Rich can generate.
from rich import inspect import rich inspect(rich)Output:
How to style your console with Rich
For complete control over terminal formatting, Rich offers a class.
Let's write a function to merge Python dictionaries.
Output:
In the above example, we have used the from rich import print as rprint nums_list = [1, 2, 3, 4] rprint(nums_list) nums_tuple = (1, 2, 3, 4) rprint(nums_tuple) nums_dict = {'nums_list': nums_list, 'nums_tuple': nums_tuple} rprint(nums_dict) bool_list = [True, False] rprint(bool_list) 1 method that offers the same capabilities as print, but adds some features useful for debugging a running application.
There are several other methods such as from rich import print as rprint nums_list = [1, 2, 3, 4] rprint(nums_list) nums_tuple = (1, 2, 3, 4) rprint(nums_tuple) nums_dict = {'nums_list': nums_list, 'nums_tuple': nums_tuple} rprint(nums_dict) bool_list = [True, False] rprint(bool_list) 2, from rich import print as rprint nums_list = [1, 2, 3, 4] rprint(nums_list) nums_tuple = (1, 2, 3, 4) rprint(nums_tuple) nums_dict = {'nums_list': nums_list, 'nums_tuple': nums_tuple} rprint(nums_dict) bool_list = [True, False] rprint(bool_list) 3, from rich import print as rprint nums_list = [1, 2, 3, 4] rprint(nums_list) nums_tuple = (1, 2, 3, 4) rprint(nums_tuple) nums_dict = {'nums_list': nums_list, 'nums_tuple': nums_tuple} rprint(nums_dict) bool_list = [True, False] rprint(bool_list) 4, from rich import print as rprint nums_list = [1, 2, 3, 4] rprint(nums_list) nums_tuple = (1, 2, 3, 4) rprint(nums_tuple) nums_dict = {'nums_list': nums_list, 'nums_tuple': nums_tuple} rprint(nums_dict) bool_list = [True, False] rprint(bool_list) 5, and so on. Learn more about them here.
How to use Tree in Rich
Rich has a class which can generate a tree view in the terminal. A tree view is a great way of presenting the contents of a filesystem or any other hierarchical data. Each branch of the tree can have a label which may be text or any other Rich renderable.
Let's see an example by creating a family tree:
from rich.tree import Tree from rich import print as rprint tree = Tree("Family Tree") tree.add("Mom") tree.add("Dad") tree.add("Brother").add("Wife") tree.add("[red]Sister").add("[green]Husband").add("[blue]Son") rprint(tree)Output:
Once we create an instance of the from rich import print as rprint nums_list = [1, 2, 3, 4] rprint(nums_list) nums_tuple = (1, 2, 3, 4) rprint(nums_tuple) nums_dict = {'nums_list': nums_list, 'nums_tuple': nums_tuple} rprint(nums_dict) bool_list = [True, False] rprint(bool_list) 6 class, we can use the from rich import print as rprint nums_list = [1, 2, 3, 4] rprint(nums_list) nums_tuple = (1, 2, 3, 4) rprint(nums_tuple) nums_dict = {'nums_list': nums_list, 'nums_tuple': nums_tuple} rprint(nums_dict) bool_list = [True, False] rprint(bool_list) 8 method to add branches to it. To create a complex tree, you just use the from rich import print as rprint nums_list = [1, 2, 3, 4] rprint(nums_list) nums_tuple = (1, 2, 3, 4) rprint(nums_tuple) nums_dict = {'nums_list': nums_list, 'nums_tuple': nums_tuple} rprint(nums_dict) bool_list = [True, False] rprint(bool_list) 8 method to add more branches to it. Notice the Brother and Sister branch in the above example.
In the official documentation, we have a tree.py file that outputs the file structure using Tree. The output looks like this:
How to display a progress bar using Rich
Rich can show continuously updated information about the status of long-running tasks, file copies, and so forth. You can customize this information, too. By default, it provides a description of the 'task,' a progress bar, percentage complete, and anticipated time left.
Multiple tasks are supported with a rich progress display, each with a bar and progress statistics. You can use this to keep track of several jobs that are being worked on in threads or processes.
Let's first try the import rich print(help(rich))0 method to create the progress bar.
from rich.progress import track from time import sleep def process_data(): sleep(0.02) for _ in track(range(100), description='[green]Processing data'): process_data()Output:
If we want to record the time when a particular task is finished executing, we can use import rich print(help(rich))1 instead.
from rich.console import Console from time import sleep console = Console() data = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] with console.status("[bold green]Fetching data...") as status: while data: num = data.pop(0) sleep(1) console.log(f"[green]Finish fetching data[/green] {num}") console.log(f'[bold][red]Done!')You can work directly with the Progress class if you need several tasks in the display or want to customize the columns in the progress display. After you've created a Progress object, use (import rich print(help(rich))2) to add task(s) and (import rich print(help(rich))3) to update progress.
The Progress class is intended to be used as a context manager, automatically starting and stopping the progress display.
Output:
How to display Rich Columns in Python
Rich can render text or other Rich renderables in neat columns with the class. To use, construct a Columns instance with an iterable of renderables and print it to the Console.
python -m rich0Output:
How to display Rich tables in Python
Rich’s class offers a variety of ways to render tabular data to the terminal. This class has import rich print(help(rich))6 and import rich print(help(rich))7 methods to add column and row respectively to the table instance created from the import rich print(help(rich))5 class.
Let's create a table for our todo list. This table will have three columns – S.No., Task, and Status.
python -m rich1Output:
Wrapping Up
In this tutorial, we learned how to use Rich to beautify the terminal. There are lots of other features that Rich supports. Learn more about them in the official documentation.
Feel free to fork and play with the source code of this article here.
Thanks for reading!
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Application Developer at Thoughtworks India
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