Print ASCII line art characters in C# console application

Question

I would like to have a C# console application print the extended ASCII Codes from http://www.asciitable.com/. In particular I am looking at the line art characters: 169, 170, 179-218. Unfortunately when I tried, I ended up getting 'Ú' for 218 and expect to see the other characters from http://www.csharp411.com/ascii-table/.

I'm aware that ASCII only specifies character codes 0 - 127. I found another post with a reference to SetConsoleOutputCP(), but was not able to get that to work in a C# class or find an example of how to do so.

Is it possible to print the line art characters in a C# console application? If it is can someone provide a URL to an example or the code?

Answer 1

A small program that modifies the codepage used by the Console.OutputEncoding property to use the characters you desire:

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Console.OutputEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(1252);
        Console.WriteLine((char) 169);
        Console.WriteLine((char) 170);

        for(char c = (char)179; c <= (char)218; ++c)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(c);
        }
    }
}

EDIT:

So I went ahead and looked up the Unicode equivalents of the box art. There's a few extra glyphs that may be useful to you. That Wikipedia page lists all of their code points.

I've put together this to try them out:

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        for(int i = 0x2500; i <= 0x2570; i += 0x10)
        {
            for(int c = 0; c <= 0xF; ++c)
            {
                Console.Write((char) (i + c));
            }

            Console.WriteLine();
        }
    }
}

For me, quite a few glyphs simply come up as ?, but the standard box-art glyphs we're used to seeing in the old ASCII games do appear for me. Hopefully these will work for you.

Answer 2

To view correct ascii's on console I just do this:

Console.OutputEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(28591);

To understand ASCII Chart I wrote below code:

using System;

namespace AsciiChart
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.OutputEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(28591);
            for (int i = 0; i < 256; i++) {
               Console.Write(i+"=> ["+(char)i +"]  \n");
            }
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

Let's begin to draw, sample 1:

using System;

namespace AsciiBorder
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            int topleft = 218;
            int hline = 196;
            int topright = 191;
            int vline = 179;
            int bottomleft = 192;
            int bottomright = 217;

            Console.OutputEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(28591);
            //draw top left corner
            Write(topleft);
            //draw top horizontal line
            for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
                Write(hline);
            //draw top right corner
            Write(topright);
            Console.WriteLine();
            //draw left and right vertical lines
            for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++)
            {
                Write(vline);
                for (int k = 0; k < 10; k++) {
                    Console.Write(" ");
                }
                WriteLine(vline);
            }
            //draw bottom left coner
            Write(bottomleft);
            //draw bottom horizontal line
            for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
                Write(hline);
            //draw bottom right coner
            Write(bottomright);
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
        static void Write(int charcode)
        {
            Console.Write((char)charcode);
        }
        static void WriteLine(int charcode)
        {
            Console.WriteLine((char)charcode);
        }
    }
}

Console Output:

More info about Latin 1 & ASCII Code Pages

Completed 3x3 Tic-Tac-Toe like board drawing code: Sample 2

Code:

using System;

namespace AsciiBorder
{
    class Program
    {
        const int topleft = 218, hline = 196, topright = 191, vline = 179, bottomleft = 192, bottomright = 217, cross = 197, topT = 194, bottomT = 193, leftT = 195, rightT = 180;
        const int space = 10/*this determine size of the single cell*/, spacer_ex = (space / 2) + 1;
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {            
            Console.OutputEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(28591);
            Console.Title = "3x3 Board";
            DrawTop();
            DrawMidSpacer();
            DrawMiddle();
            DrawMidSpacer();
            DrawMiddle();
            DrawMidSpacer();
            DrawBottom();

            Console.ReadKey();
        }
        static void DrawBottom() {
            #region bottom
            Write(bottomleft);
            for (int i = 0; i < space; i++)
                Write(hline);
            Write(bottomT);
            for (int i = 0; i < space; i++)
                Write(hline);
            Write(bottomT);
            for (int i = 0; i < space; i++)
                Write(hline);
            Write(bottomright);

            Console.WriteLine();
            #endregion
        }
        static void DrawMiddle() {
            #region middle
            Write(leftT);
            for (int i = 0; i < space; i++)
                Write(hline);
            Write(cross);
            for (int i = 0; i < space; i++)
                Write(hline);
            Write(cross);
            for (int i = 0; i < space; i++)
                Write(hline);
            Write(rightT);

            Console.WriteLine();
            #endregion
        }
        static void DrawMidSpacer() {
            #region middlespacer
            for (int x = 0; x < spacer_ex; x++)
            {
                Write(vline);
                for (int i = 0; i < space; i++)
                    Console.Write(" ");
                Write(vline);
                for (int i = 0; i < space; i++)
                    Console.Write(" ");
                Write(vline);
                for (int i = 0; i < space; i++)
                    Console.Write(" ");
                Write(vline);

                Console.WriteLine();
            }
            #endregion
        }
        static void DrawTop() {
            #region top
            Write(topleft);
            for (int i = 0; i < space; i++)
                Write(hline);
            Write(topT);
            for (int i = 0; i < space; i++)
                Write(hline);
            Write(topT);
            for (int i = 0; i < space; i++)
                Write(hline);
            Write(topright);

            Console.WriteLine();
            #endregion
        }
        static void Write(int charcode)
        {
            Console.Write((char)charcode);
        }
        static void WriteLine(int charcode)
        {
            Console.WriteLine((char)charcode);
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

You can simply use Signs from the ASCII-table in windows.

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("╔═╗");
        Console.WriteLine("╚═╝");
    }
}

Answer 4

I battled this for days a while back. I don't think it can be done, regardless of what other people say. Now, I was trying to make a Dwarf Fortress style game. If you are doing the same, do what he did. Use images.

• Faster, because it can make use of graphic acceleration.
• Easier, because they are tiles and there are LOTS of tutorials on doing that.
• Well Supported, with things like XNA for the very framework you are already using.
• Extensible, so you can swap in other images at a later date, for new images like the bearded smiles in DF.

Answer 5

I don't know how to get ASCII to work but you can use Unicode, to some degree, if you want to. It does require that the console be set to a true type font.

Michael Kaplan's article 'Anyone who says the console can't do Unicode isn't as smart as they think they are' includes the code for this.

I couldn't get his code to work directly but this worked for me as long as I ran it from a True Type Font Console. The article includes how to set it.

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
namespace TestUnicode

{
    class Program
{



public static void Main(string[] args) {
    string st = "\u0169\u0129\n\n";
    IntPtr stdout = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);
    uint written;
    WriteConsoleW(stdout, st, st.Length, out written, IntPtr.Zero);
}


[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, ExactSpelling = true)]
internal static extern bool WriteConsoleW(IntPtr hConsoleOutput,
                                          string lpBuffer,
                                          int nNumberOfCharsToWrite,
                                          out uint lpNumberOfCharsWritten,
                                          IntPtr lpReserved);


internal static bool IsConsoleFontTrueType(IntPtr std) {
 CONSOLE_FONT_INFO_EX cfie = new CONSOLE_FONT_INFO_EX();
    cfie.cbSize = (uint)Marshal.SizeOf(cfie);
    if(GetCurrentConsoleFont(std, false, ref cfie)) {
        return(((cfie.FontFamily & TMPF_TRUETYPE) == TMPF_TRUETYPE));
    }
    return false;
}



[DllImport("Kernel32.DLL", ExactSpelling = true)]
internal static extern IntPtr GetStdHandle(int nStdHandle);


[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
internal static extern bool GetCurrentConsoleFont(IntPtr hConsoleOutput,
                                                    bool bMaximumWindow, 
                                                    ref CONSOLE_FONT_INFO_EX lpConsoleCurrentFontEx);



internal struct COORD {
    internal short X;
    internal short Y;
    internal COORD(short x, short y) {
        X = x;
        Y = y;
    }
}

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
internal unsafe struct CONSOLE_FONT_INFO_EX {
    internal uint cbSize;
    internal uint nFont;
    internal COORD dwFontSize;
    internal int FontFamily;
    internal int FontWeight;
    fixed char FaceName[LF_FACESIZE];
}

internal const int TMPF_TRUETYPE = 0x4;
internal const int LF_FACESIZE = 32;
internal const string BOM = "\uFEFF";
internal const int STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE = -11; // Handle to the standard output device.
internal const int ERROR_INVALID_HANDLE = 6;
internal const int ERROR_SUCCESS = 0;
internal const uint FILE_TYPE_UNKNOWN = 0x0000;
internal const uint FILE_TYPE_DISK = 0x0001;
internal const uint FILE_TYPE_CHAR = 0x0002;
internal const uint FILE_TYPE_PIPE = 0x0003;
internal const uint FILE_TYPE_REMOTE = 0x8000;
internal static IntPtr INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE = new IntPtr(-1);
}
    }