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Asked: 2026-05-13T18:26:34+00:00

I am getting very strange outputs from my IRB console. Here it is: irb(main):001:0>

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I am getting very strange outputs from my IRB console. Here it is:

 irb(main):001:0> File.dirname(__FILE__)
 => ←[0;31m"←[0;0m←[0;36m.←[0;0m←[0;31m"←[0;0m

Seems like an encoding issue, right? I am not sure why this is happening. Any ideas how to fix it?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Those are escape codes used to set colors in a terminal program; probably most popularly to colour a prompt in an xterm or compatible terminal. My bash prompt environment variable, for example, looks like this:

    PS1="\[\033]2;\w\007\]\[\033[0;31m\]\u@\h \[\033[0;32m\]\!\[\033[0;31m\]> \[\033[0m\]

    It looks like some string like that one is getting into your console and confusing it (since it’s not bash and/or in an xterm-friendly terminal emulator, I guess).

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