Question

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <windows.h>
#include <time.h>

unsigned long n = 1;

int main()
{
    int i = 0;
    std::string text = "I whip my hair back and forth";
    std::string wipIt = " ";
    size_t sz;
    sz = wipIt.size();
    srand(time(0));

    do{
        for(i = 0; i < 10; i++)
        {
            int randomNumber = rand() % 15 + 1;
            Sleep(50);
            wipIt.resize (sz++,' ');
            std::cout << wipIt;
            SetConsoleTextAttribute(GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE), randomNumber);
            std::cout << text << "\n";
        }
        for(i = 10; i > 0; i--)
        {
            int randomNumber = rand() % 15 + 1;
            Sleep(50);
            wipIt.resize (sz--,' ');
            std::cout << wipIt;
            SetConsoleTextAttribute(GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE), randomNumber);
            std::cout << text << "\n";
        }
    }
    while (n != 0);
    return 0;
}

If I messed this post up I apologize this is only like my second post.

What would be the easiest way to make every character in the string a different color, instead of the entire string the same color.

Tidying up tips would be appreciated as well 😛

EDIT: tidy’d up a little, and the random is working well, thank you all ^_^ now for the color by character?

Answer 1

Why does it not seem random? Well, because it isn’t. Computers use pseudorandom number generators to produce seemingly random numbers which are actually well-known and determinate.

The initial state of the pseudorandom generator is called a ‘seed’; you have to set it to something different every time to produce more-close-to-random results. In C, you can do it like this:

srand(time(NULL));

This sets the seed to the actual time in seconds upon every call.