# first define colors to use
$_colors = array(
        "LIGHT_RED"      => "[1;31m",
        "LIGHT_GREEN"     => "[1;32m",
        "YELLOW"         => "[1;33m",
        "LIGHT_BLUE"     => "[1;34m",
        "MAGENTA"     => "[1;35m",
        "LIGHT_CYAN"     => "[1;36m",
        "WHITE"         => "[1;37m",
        "NORMAL"         => "[0m",
        "BLACK"         => "[0;30m",
        "RED"         => "[0;31m",
        "GREEN"         => "[0;32m",
        "BROWN"         => "[0;33m",
        "BLUE"         => "[0;34m",
        "CYAN"         => "[0;36m",
        "BOLD"         => "[1m",
        "UNDERSCORE"     => "[4m",
        "REVERSE"     => "[7m",

);
##############################################
# Output colorized text to terminal run
# php scripts..
##############################################
function termcolored($text, $color="NORMAL", $back=1){
    global $_colors;
    $out = $_colors["$color"];
    if($out == ""){ $out = "[0m"; }
    if($back){
        return chr(27)."$out$text".chr(27)."[0m";#.chr(27);
    }else{
        echo chr(27)."$out$text".chr(27).chr(27)."[0m";#.chr(27);
    }//fi
}// end function
##############################################

echo termcolored("hello world","RED");

Code to support coloured output in php script run via a terminal

Coloured Terminal PHP

PHP