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)

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

cd libcolor

make

sudo make install

make samples

make tests

Running tests will require libcmocka

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)})