stdlib and colored output in C

Question

I am making a simple application which requires colored output  How can I make my output colored like emacs and bash do   I don t care about Windows  as my application is only for UNIX systems

User · Answer

include  lt stdio h gt    define BLUE string    x1b 34m  string   x1b 0m   define RED string    x1b 31m  string   x1b 0m   int main void        printf  this is   RED  red      n            a somewhat more complex         printf  this is   BLUE   s      n   blue         return 0      reading Wikipedia     x1b 0m resets all attributes  x1b 31m sets foreground color to red   x1b 44m would set the background to blue  both    x1b 31 44m both but inversed    x1b 31 44 7m remember to reset afterwards  x1b 0m

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All modern terminal emulators use ANSI escape codes to show colours and other things  Don t bother with libraries  the code is really simple   More info is here   Example in C    include  lt stdio h gt    define ANSI COLOR RED       x1b 31m   define ANSI COLOR GREEN     x1b 32m   define ANSI COLOR YELLOW    x1b 33m   define ANSI COLOR BLUE      x1b 34m   define ANSI COLOR MAGENTA   x1b 35m   define ANSI COLOR CYAN      x1b 36m   define ANSI COLOR RESET     x1b 0m   int main  int argc  char const  argv         printf ANSI COLOR RED      This text is RED       ANSI COLOR RESET   n      printf ANSI COLOR GREEN    This text is GREEN     ANSI COLOR RESET   n      printf ANSI COLOR YELLOW   This text is YELLOW    ANSI COLOR RESET   n      printf ANSI COLOR BLUE     This text is BLUE      ANSI COLOR RESET   n      printf ANSI COLOR MAGENTA  This text is MAGENTA   ANSI COLOR RESET   n      printf ANSI COLOR CYAN     This text is CYAN      ANSI COLOR RESET   n       return 0

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Dealing with colour sequences can get messy and different systems might use different Colour Sequence Indicators   I would suggest you try using ncurses  Other than colour  ncurses can do many other neat things with console UI

User · Answer

You can output special color control codes to get colored terminal output  here s a good resource on how to print colors   For example   printf   033 22 34mHello  world  033 0m        shows a blue hello world   EDIT  My original one used prompt color codes  which doesn t work     This one does  I tested it

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Because you can t print a character with string formating  You can also think of adding a format with something like this   define PRINTC c f s  printf    033  dm  f   033 0m   30   c  s    f is format as in printf  PRINTC  4    s n    bar     will print blue bar  PRINTC  1    d    a     will print red 97

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If you use same color for whole program   you can define printf   function       include lt stdio h gt      define ah red   e 31m      define printf X  printf ah red   s  X       int main                printf  Bangladesh            printf   n            return 0

User · Answer

You can assign one color to every functionality to make it more useful    define Color Red   33 0 31m        Color Start  define Color end   33 0m        To flush out prev settings  define LOG RED X  printf   s  s  s  Color Red X Color end   foo     LOG RED  This is in Red Color        Like wise you can select different color codes and make this more generic

[c] stdlib and colored output in C

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