Question

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Colorize stdout output to Windows cmd.exe from console C++ app

I am using codeblocks on Windows XP and I need a way to output colored text, and maybe change the color of the background as well in a console application.
I tried the conio.h functions but they don’t seem to be compatible with code blocks.

Answer 1

It looks like you’ll want to use some Windows API features to accomplish this.
If you were using Cygwin for windows, it’d be a bit easier.

Here’s an example courtesy of daniweb:

// color your text in Windows console mode
// colors are 0=black 1=blue 2=green and so on to 15=white
// colorattribute = foreground + background * 16
// to get red text on yellow use 4 + 14*16 = 228
// light red on yellow would be 12 + 14*16 = 236
// a Dev-C++ tested console application by vegaseat 07nov2004

#include <iostream>
#include <windows.h> // WinApi header

using namespace std; // std::cout, std::cin

int main()
{
    HANDLE hConsole;
    int k;

    hConsole = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);

    // you can loop k higher to see more color choices
    for(k = 1; k < 255; k++)
    {
        // pick the colorattribute k you want
        SetConsoleTextAttribute(hConsole, k);
        cout << k << " I want to be nice today!" << endl;
    }

    cin.get(); // wait
    return 0;
}