Colored output in C++

Question

Is there a way to print colored output using iostream and Xcode? I'd like to be able to, for example, print Hello World! with Hello red, World blue and ! yellow. How can I do that?

possible duplicate of (at least related) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7414983/how-to-use-the-ansi-escape-code-for-outputting-colored-text-on-console — Johan Lundberg, Feb 06 '12 at 09:40
Read this thread http://www.daniweb.com/software-development/cpp/threads/9921 — Henk Jansen, Feb 06 '12 at 09:40

score 91 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 18 '18 at 01:08

91

You need the terminal color codes. For linux it's the following (your system might be different, look it up):

//the following are UBUNTU/LINUX, and MacOS ONLY terminal color codes.
#define RESET   "\033[0m"
#define BLACK   "\033[30m"      /* Black */
#define RED     "\033[31m"      /* Red */
#define GREEN   "\033[32m"      /* Green */
#define YELLOW  "\033[33m"      /* Yellow */
#define BLUE    "\033[34m"      /* Blue */
#define MAGENTA "\033[35m"      /* Magenta */
#define CYAN    "\033[36m"      /* Cyan */
#define WHITE   "\033[37m"      /* White */
#define BOLDBLACK   "\033[1m\033[30m"      /* Bold Black */
#define BOLDRED     "\033[1m\033[31m"      /* Bold Red */
#define BOLDGREEN   "\033[1m\033[32m"      /* Bold Green */
#define BOLDYELLOW  "\033[1m\033[33m"      /* Bold Yellow */
#define BOLDBLUE    "\033[1m\033[34m"      /* Bold Blue */
#define BOLDMAGENTA "\033[1m\033[35m"      /* Bold Magenta */
#define BOLDCYAN    "\033[1m\033[36m"      /* Bold Cyan */
#define BOLDWHITE   "\033[1m\033[37m"      /* Bold White */

This allows you to do the following:

std::cout << RED << "hello world" << RESET << std::endl;

Note: If you don't use RESET the color will remain changed until the next time you use a color code.

edited Dec 18 '18 at 01:08

Josue Zafra

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answered Feb 06 '12 at 09:47

shuttle87

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1

He's on Mac OS (at least I presume he is, since he mentions XCode) so this should work. – Mr Lister Feb 06 '12 at 09:54
16

It will work in Terminal, but not in the Xcode console window – Paul R Feb 06 '12 at 10:10
@shuttle87, thanks for your reply. How can I set instead 3 variables with 3 different colors, such as `char hello = 'H'`, `char world = 'W'` and `char ex = '!'` to be colored differently? – Shoe Feb 06 '12 at 10:35
1

you need to send the formatting code to terminal then the character then the reset code. So if you wanted to do this for an individual character you would do something like `cout << RED << hello << RESET;` . You could also write a few utility functions to make it easier if this is something you do regularly. – shuttle87 Feb 06 '12 at 10:41
2

@Paul R do you know how to detect if a console supports ANSI escape codes, so that Xcode console doesn't print them? – elmattic Jan 26 '13 at 15:44
By the way, small thing, but don't use define for such things in C++. Anyways, thanks a lot! – IceFire Mar 21 '21 at 07:36

user760453 · Answer 2 · 2018-08-15T00:20:55.093

In a more c++ way for an ANSI capable terminal, it is possible to write your own ansi stream manipulators like std::endl but for handling ansi escape code.

Code for doing so can look like this for basic raw implementation:

namespace ansi {
  template < class CharT, class Traits >
  constexpr
  std::basic_ostream< CharT, Traits > & reset( std::basic_ostream< CharT, Traits > &os )
  {
     return os << "\033[0m";
  }

  template < class CharT, class Traits >
  constexpr
  std::basic_ostream< CharT, Traits > & foreground_black( std::basic_ostream< CharT, Traits > &os )
  {
     return os << "\033[30m";
  }

  template < class CharT, class Traits >
  constexpr
  std::basic_ostream< CharT, Traits > & foreground_red( std::basic_ostream< CharT, Traits > &os )
  {
     return os << "\033[31m";
  }
  ...
 } // ansi

And it can be used in a code like this:

std::cout << ansi::foreground_red << "in red" << ansi::reset << std::endl;

Nice. Slightly simplified these by deducing return type with `constexpr auto&` — MHebes, Jan 11 '22 at 18:29

Paul Jurczak · Answer 3 · 2021-03-22T18:18:54.277

Use {fmt} library, which is being slowly absorbed into C++ standard, starting with C++20 in <format> header. Text colors and styles are not in the standard yet, AFAIK, but you can get them with the version from github, where you can find this example:

#include <fmt/color.h>

int main() {
  fmt::print(fg(fmt::color::crimson) | fmt::emphasis::bold,
             "Hello, {}!\n", "world");
  fmt::print(fg(fmt::color::floral_white) | bg(fmt::color::slate_gray) |
             fmt::emphasis::underline, "Hello, {}!\n", "мир");
  fmt::print(fg(fmt::color::steel_blue) | fmt::emphasis::italic,
             "Hello, {}!\n", "世界");
}

Colored output in C++

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