I had asked this question a while back: Is it possible to colorize permissions-part of the output of ls?

While the accepted answer in that question is OK, I now want to do the same thing without using any "external" language. I came up with the following using a bash function and sed.

The question is can you help me fix one bug and also help me make this code "better" ?

• Make better: I am repeating ([r-])([w-])([x-]) three times. How to make this more succint?

  
  



• Fix bug: I am unable to get a back-reference to the tenth match 10. Does sed only support up to 9 back-references?

  
  

  

  
  

The relevant portion of the code (broken into multiple lines for purposes of better readability when posting in this question):

ls -la | sed "s

/^

([d-])

([r-])

([w-])

([x-])

([r-])

([w-])

([x-])

([r-])

([w-])

([x-])

/

`echo -e "

$EMG1

$EMY234

$EMR567

$EMC8910

$NONE"`/"

For reference, the complete function I am using is:

domagic() {

  local NONE="033[0m"    # unsets color to term's fg color



  # regular colors

  local K="033[0;30m"    # black

  local R="033[0;31m"    # red

  local G="033[0;32m"    # green

  local Y="033[0;33m"    # yellow

  local B="033[0;34m"    # blue

  local M="033[0;35m"    # magenta

  local C="033[0;36m"    # cyan

  local W="033[0;37m"    # white



  # emphasized (bolded) colors

  local EMK="033[1;30m"

  local EMR="033[1;31m"

  local EMG="033[1;32m"

  local EMY="033[1;33m"

  local EMB="033[1;34m"

  local EMM="033[1;35m"

  local EMC="033[1;36m"

  local EMW="033[1;37m"



  # background colors

  local BGK="033[40m"

  local BGR="033[41m"

  local BGG="033[42m"

  local BGY="033[43m"

  local BGB="033[44m"

  local BGM="033[45m"

  local BGC="033[46m"

  local BGW="033[47m"



  #do magic here

  ls -la | sed "s/^([d-])([r-])([w-])([x-])([r-])([w-])([x-])([r-])([w-])([x-])/`echo -e "$EMG1$EMY234$EMR567$EMC8910$NONE"`/"

}

domagic

#to run: save as domagic.sh and run with: bash domagic.sh