SetColor Function

[Chris26]

Hello guys,

i use this function

  string SetColor(unsigned short color){
    HANDLE hcon = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);
    SetConsoleTextAttribute(hcon, color);
    return "";
}

to use color for my text. The only problem is that i have to write this before the code for example

SetColor(1);
cout << "Hello";
SetColor(32);
cout << " World!" << endl;

Is there anyway so i can use it like this?

cout << SetColor(1) << "Hello" << SetColor(32) << " World" << endl;

Thanks!

[dutch]

#include <iostream>
#include <windows.h>

struct SetColor {
    int n;
    SetColor(int n) : n(n) {}
};

std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, const SetColor& sc) {
    SetConsoleTextAttribute(GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE), sc.n);
    return os;
}

int main() {
    std::cout << SetColor(1) << "Hello" << SetColor(32) << " World\n";
}

[Grime]

How do iomanip' manipulators achieve this? Do they use structures?
I found this: std::ostream& IDENTIFIER(std::ostream &out) { /*code*/ return out;}
But that takes no arguments..

edit:
thaz cool dutch

[Chris26]

@dutch

thank you man, it was was not exactly working hat to edit something but now it works with your code! Gj and thank you! SOLVED

[dutch]

@Grime, There is a standard overload of operator<< for such a function (one taking and returning an ostream&).

#include <iostream>

std::ostream& Hello(std::ostream& os) {
    return os << "HELLO";
}

int main() {
    std::cout << Hello << '\n';
}

@Chris26, was your edit changing int to HANDLE? (I had an int there for testing since I don't have Windows.)

[Grime]

Thanks dutch. Makes sense now!
By the way the error was that const HANDLE type can't have an in class initializer. Why tho.

I guess he put the entire statement under the operator<< overload.

[dutch]

@Grime, I should've realized that. The function would need to be constexpr. I've edited the code above. Hopefully it works now. It's not perfect since it's accepting any ostream& but the ostream& needs to be a console.