Changing Color Of Text

[Code Assassin]

Hello,

How do you change the color of input in a console application, and how do you change the color of output?
Any help would be appreciated.

[Duthomhas]

What systems are you targeting?
Windows?
Unix?
Both?

[Code Assassin]

Windows.

[Duthomhas]

Use SetConsoleTextAttribute() before every input or output you wish to colorize:

#include <windows.h> 

SetConsoleTextAttribute( GetStdHandle( STD_INPUT_HANDLE ), color );

The color is the EGA/VGA color attribute text. Your program cannot control the blink/intensity attribute -- that is something that your user sets -- but Windows consoles by default use intensity (so that you can use all 16 colors in the background). An enum for you:

enum
  {
  COLOR_BLACK,
  COLOR_DBLUE,
  COLOR_DGREEN,
  COLOR_DCYAN,
  COLOR_DRED,
  COLOR_DMAGENTA,
  COLOR_DYELLOW,  COLOR_BROWN = COLOR_DYELLOW,
  COLOR_LGRAY,
  COLOR_DGRAY,
  COLOR_LBLUE,
  COLOR_LGREEN,
  COLOR_LCYAN,
  COLOR_LRED,
  COLOR_LMAGENTA,
  COLOR_LYELLOW, COLOR_YELLOW = COLOR_LYELLOW,
  COLOR_WHITE
  };

Hope thsi helps.

[Code Assassin]

:)

Thanks Duoas.

Just curious though:

What would you use for both Linux and Windows?

[Duthomhas]

Depends on how complicated your application is.
For heavy stuff, use NCurses/PDCurses.
For simple stuff, just use some #ifdefs to switch between Win API and terminfo code.