libcolor

libcolor is designed to be a library that provides an easy-to-use interface for printing in different colors and styles.

Supported:

• 4-bit colors

Not supported yet:

• 8-bit colors
• 24-bit colors (Truecolor)

Installation

git clone https://github.com/febits/libcolor

cd libcolor

make

sudo make install

Samples and testing

make samples

make tests

Running tests will require libcmocka

Usage

After the installation, you'll be able to access the "color.h" that lives in /usr/include. Remember to link your final executable binary with the libcolor using -lcolor.

The main header file color.h exposes two functions: printfc and fprintfc

int printfc(struct style s, const char *fmt, ...)
    __attribute__((format(printf, 2, 3)));

int fprintfc(FILE *stream, struct style s, const char *fmt, ...)
    __attribute__((format(printf, 3, 4)));

The printfc and fprintfc take one especial argument: struct style

typedef struct style {
  uint8_t foreground;
  uint8_t background;
  uint8_t effects;
} Style;

The fprintfc also takes the specific STREAM, which is a FILE *.

The foreground and background members support the following enum values, which are in color.h:

Normal ones:

BLACK, RED, GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE, MAGENTA, CYAN, WHITE.

Bright ones:

BRIGHT_BLACK, BRIGHT_RED, BRIGHT_GREEN, BRIGHT_YELLOW, 
BRIGHT_BLUE, BRIGHT_MAGENTA, BRIGHT_CYAN, BRIGHT_WHITE.

The field effects is a classical bit vector, and you can merge the available values using the OR operator:

• BOLD
• DIM
• ITALIC
• UNDERLINE
• BLINKING
• REVERSE
• HIDDEN
• CROSSOUT

Let's suppose that you want a yellow foreground with bold, italic and cross-out:

#include <color.h>

int main(void) {
  printfc(STYLE(YELLOW, 0, BOLD | ITALIC | CROSSOUT),
          "POTATO BANANA %s\n", "ORANGE");

  return 0;
}

That macro STYLE(f, b, e) is defined in color.h:

#define STYLE(f, b, e) ((struct style){(f), (b), (e)})

Note

Default values for the foreground, background, or effects must be set to 0.