stdlib and colored output in C

I am making a simple application which requires colored output. How can I make my output colored like emacs and bas开发者_如何学JAVAh do?

I don't care about Windows, as my application is only for UNIX systems.

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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 <stdio.h>

#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.

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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.

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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).

---

#include <stdio.h>

#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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If you use same color for whole program , you can define printf() function.

   #include<stdio.h>
   #define ah_red "\e[31m"
   #define printf(X) printf(ah_red "%s",X);
   #int main()
   {
        printf("Bangladesh");
        printf("\n");
        return 0;
   }

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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