[c] Color text in terminal applications in UNIX

I started to write a terminal text editor, something like the first text editors for UNIX, such as vi. My only goal is to have a good time, but I want to be able to show text in color, so I can have syntax highlighting for editing source code.

How can I achieve this? Is there some special POSIX API for this, or do I have to use ncurses? (I'd rather not)

Any advice? Maybe some textbooks on the UNIX API?

Use ANSI escape sequences. This article goes into some detail about them. You can use them with printf as well.

You probably want ANSI color codes. Most *nix terminals support them.

Different solution that I find more elegant

Here's another way to do it. Some people will prefer this as the code is a bit cleaner. There are no %s and a RESET color to end the coloration.

#include <stdio.h>

#define RED   "\x1B[31m"
#define GRN   "\x1B[32m"
#define YEL   "\x1B[33m"
#define BLU   "\x1B[34m"
#define MAG   "\x1B[35m"
#define CYN   "\x1B[36m"
#define WHT   "\x1B[37m"
#define RESET "\x1B[0m"

int main() {
  printf(RED "red\n"     RESET);
  printf(GRN "green\n"   RESET);
  printf(YEL "yellow\n"  RESET);
  printf(BLU "blue\n"    RESET);
  printf(MAG "magenta\n" RESET);
  printf(CYN "cyan\n"    RESET);
  printf(WHT "white\n"   RESET);

  return 0;
}

This program gives the following output:

Simple example with multiple colors

This way, it's easy to do something like:

printf("This is " RED "red" RESET " and this is " BLU "blue" RESET "\n");

This line produces the following output: