adding text decorations to console output

Question

I have a c# .net 3.5 application that writes text to the console using a StreamWriter. Is there a way I can add text decorations like underline and strikethrough to the text that is printed to the console? Possibly using ANSI escape sequences?

TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(Console.OpenStandardOutput());
writer.WriteLine("some underlined text");

Thanks, PaulH

Answer 1

In Windows 10 build 16257 and later:

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

class Program
{
    const int STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE = -11;
    const uint ENABLE_VIRTUAL_TERMINAL_PROCESSING = 4;

    [DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    static extern IntPtr GetStdHandle(int nStdHandle);

    [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
    static extern bool GetConsoleMode(IntPtr hConsoleHandle, out uint lpMode);

    [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
    static extern bool SetConsoleMode(IntPtr hConsoleHandle, uint dwMode);

    static void Main()
    {
        var handle = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);
        uint mode;
        GetConsoleMode(handle, out mode);
        mode |= ENABLE_VIRTUAL_TERMINAL_PROCESSING;
        SetConsoleMode(handle, mode);

        const string UNDERLINE = "\x1B[4m";
        const string RESET = "\x1B[0m";
        Console.WriteLine("Some " + UNDERLINE + "underlined" + RESET + " text");
    }
}