Terminal Colors 

Changing terminal output colors with an easy function.

I had a hard time adjusting to using ncursers and conio in Linux, so I just wrote my own color map. It resembles the Borland VCL color consts that I'm so used to.

Sample program and color.h shown below:

main.cpp

#include <iostream>

#include <stdio.h> 

#include <cstring> 

#include "color.h"

 using namespace std;

 

 int main()

 {

 string s = "Demo colors on terminal output.";

  cout << SendColoredText(clMAROON, clWHITE, s) << "\n";

  cout << SendColoredText(clBLACK, clOLIVE, s) << "\n";

  cout << s << " (default)\n";// default terminal colors

  cout << "\e[3m\e[4m" + SendColoredText(13, 9, s) << "\n\n";//italics + underlined

 return 0;

 }

colors.h

#define clBLACK 0
#define clMAROON 1
#define clGREEN 2
#define clOLIVE 3
#define clNAVY 4
#define clBLUE 5
#define clPURPLE 6
#define clSILVER 7
#define clGRAY 8
#define clRED 9
#define clLIME 10
#define clYELLOW 11
#define clMAGENTA 12
#define clCYAN 13
#define clWHITE 14
#define clDEFAULT 15

std::string SendColoredText(int BG, int FG, std::string TEXT)

{
std::string _FG, _BG, _ATTRIB, RETURN_STRING;
std::string RESET_STRING = "\e[0m";
switch(FG)
{
case 0:{_FG = "\e[30m"; break;}
case 1:{_FG = "\e[31m"; break;}
case 2:{_FG = "\e[32m"; break;}
case 3:{_FG = "\e[33m"; break;}
case 4:{_FG = "\e[34m"; break;}
case 5:{_FG = "\e[35m"; break;}
case 6:{_FG = "\e[36m"; break;}
case 7:{_FG = "\e[37m"; break;}
case 8:{_FG = "\e[90m"; break;}
case 9:{_FG = "\e[91m"; break;}
case 10:{_FG = "\e[92m"; break;}
case 11:{_FG = "\e[93m"; break;}
case 12:{_FG = "\e[95m"; break;}
case 13:{_FG = "\e[96m"; break;}
case 14:{_FG = "\e[97m"; break;}
case 15:{_FG = "\e[0m"; break;}
}
switch (BG)
{
case clBLACK:{_BG = "\e[40m";break;}
case clMAROON:{_BG = "\e[41m";break;}
case clGREEN:{_BG = "\e[42m";break;}
case clOLIVE:{_BG = "\e[43m";break;}
case clNAVY:{_BG = "\e[44m";break;}
case clPURPLE:{_BG = "\e[45m";break;}
case clBLUE:{_BG = "\e[46m";break;}
case clSILVER:{_BG = "\e[47m";break;}
case clGRAY:{_BG = "\e[100m";break;}
case clRED:{_BG = "\e[101m";break;}
case clLIME:{_BG = "\e[102m";break;}
case clYELLOW:{_BG = "\e[103m";break;}
case clMAGENTA:{_BG = "\e[105m";break;}
case clCYAN:{_BG = "\e[106m";break;}
case clWHITE:{_BG = "\e[197m";break;}
}
RETURN_STRING = _BG + _FG + TEXT + RESET_STRING;
return RETURN_STRING;

}