Consideration to put num_ansi_colors in an independent upstream package

[MichaelChirico]

num_ansi_colors() really is a wonderful piece of logic. I think other packages working with command-line interfaces would benefit from it without needing to depend on {cli}.

This came up as a suggestion here:

markvanderloo/tinytest#90

WDYT, is that worthwhile to pursue?

[gaborcsardi]

This would indeed make sense in an ideal situation, but when it comes to (R) packaging in practice, the situation is not exactly ideal.

I guess the question is mostly academic for the tinytest package, I cannot imagine that they would add a new dependency, however small.

In any case, the crayon package is pretty close to what that new package would be. crayon copies the same logic as cli, and it is pretty small and lightweight, has no C code. It is superseded, so it'll never really change (except for num_ansi_colors() updates!), and will stay around forever.