C color text in terminal applications in windows

Question

I know "textcolor();" is for C++ and i've seen methods for unix... but is there way for windows also?

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
    printf("\ntest - C programming text color!");
    printf("\n--------------------------------");
    printf("\n\n\t\t-BREAK-\n\n");
    textcolor(15);
    printf("WHITE\n");
    textcolor(0);
    printf("BLACK\n");
    textcolor(4);
    printf("RED\n");
    textcolor(1);
    printf("BLUE\n");
    textcolor(2);
    printf("GREEN\n");
    textcolor(5);
    printf("MAGENTA\n");
    textcolor(14);
    printf("YELLOW\n");
    textcolor(3);
    printf("CYAN\n");
    textcolor(7);
    printf("LIGHT GRAY\n");
}

I can't find any anything on the net... let's hope the good people from stack overflow can help :D

C please, not C++

Answer 1

Since you want a C and Windows specific solution, I'd recommend using the SetConsoleTextAttribute() function in the Win32 API. You'll need to grab a handle to the console, and then pass it with the appropriate attributes.

As a simple example:

/* Change console text color, then restore it back to normal. */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <windows.h>

int main() {
    HANDLE hConsole = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);
    CONSOLE_SCREEN_BUFFER_INFO consoleInfo;
    WORD saved_attributes;

    /* Save current attributes */
    GetConsoleScreenBufferInfo(hConsole, &consoleInfo);
    saved_attributes = consoleInfo.wAttributes;

    SetConsoleTextAttribute(hConsole, FOREGROUND_BLUE);
    printf("This is some nice COLORFUL text, isn't it?");

    /* Restore original attributes */
    SetConsoleTextAttribute(hConsole, saved_attributes);
    printf("Back to normal");

    return 0;
}

For more info on the available attributes, look here.

Hope this helps! :)