Questions Concerning colorizing text in Ubuntu terminal.

Christian Ehrlicher

@Cougar-0 I'm not aware that any program can modify the text size in a terminal. And coloring is terminal-specifc.
Not a Qt domain.

Cougar 0

So are you saying you cannot change the color or size of text in c++?
Because you can in perl.
I was not aware that programs do not allow you to control and change text size and color, thanks for the info!

Christian Ehrlicher

@Cougar-0 said in Questions Concerning colorizing text in Ubuntu terminal.:

Because you can in perl.

You can't change the size of a terminal output in any programming language. It's the terminal which decides what it displays.

Cougar 0

I realize I was mistaken about size in terminal, that's preset in terminal.
But when you write a program such as "My first qt program", with that popup window I would think you should be able to control/set the text size and color.
If not no biggy. I promise I won't lose any sleep over it.

JonB

@Cougar-0
You are mixing your expectations of what should happen in a terminal versus creating Qt *windows^ and thinking the same code will work there.

Perl does not have any particular support for "colorizing text in a terminal". Your Perl script simply writes "escape sequence" characters to the terminal and the terminal interprets that to color the text.

You can do what the Perl script does equally from any C or C++ program. Just write the same sequences to stdout, and if you run it from a terminal/Command Prompt it will behave like the Perl script.

Qt is not a programming language. It's a toolkit/library you can use from C++ (or Python). It offers many features, most notably the ability to have a UI with windows etc. But once you start using those (QWidget, QLabel, QMainWindow etc.) they don't allow colorized text in the way a terminal does. You can change text color/size/font etc. in a QLabel, and other Qt widgets, just not the same way as when you are writing text to a terminal.

In short: in main() just output the same characters as the Perl does via printf() or cout or whatever from C/C++. That is what the Perl program does.

SGaist

I think there might be some misunderstanding here somehow.

I demonstrated how to colorize the output of qDebug. Tested it on Linux, in a terminal, to be sure (the second version of my code).

I am currently thinking you might be talking about the output that is within Qt Creator, which I don't know if supports the ANSI/VT100 color codes used for standard terminals.

Christian Ehrlicher

@Cougar-0 said in Questions Concerning colorizing text in Ubuntu terminal.:

My first qt program", with that popup window

Now you're talking about a GUI, not a terminal. Please clarify to yourself what you really want to achieve.

Cougar 0

Both!
To know how to control/set text size and color in that popup window is one.
To be able to set the color of text in a linux terminal is the second one.
Then to be able to compare the code and see its differences.
I made a mock up of that code. For the popup window.

#include <QApplication>
#include <QLabel>
#include <QWidget>

#include <QTextSize> this is not code!
#include <QTextColor>  this is not code!

int main(int argc, char *argv[ ])
{
QApplication app(argc, argv);
QLabel hello("<center>Welcome to my first Qt program</center>");
QTextSizeHello("<center>12</center>);  this is not code!
QTextColorHello("<center>Bold Red</center>");  this is not code!
hello.setWindowTitle("My First Qt Program");
QtextSizeWindowTitle("14");  this is not code!
QTextColorWindowTitle("Bold Blue");  this is not code!
hello.resize(400, 400);
hello.show();
return app.exec();
}

The above code is is fake and I am sure very wrong but it is just give an idea of how I would think you should be able to control/set text size and color in the popup window instead of losing the popup window with the other code and the color text defaults into the terminal.
Hope I cleared things up for you.
When I searched the index in QT Creator for "Color Text", it would of been great if instead of those windows showing blank, nothing, for them to say , "Color Text is not supported at this time, or something like that.

Christian Ehrlicher

See QLabel::setText() and supported HTML subset.
Enough said about ansi escape sequences.

Cougar 0

Will do, Thanks!

Cougar 0

@JonB, Thanks for pointing out that QT is not a programming language that explains a lot!
@JonB said in Questions Concerning colorizing text in Ubuntu terminal.:

Do you mean you just want to translate the 10 lines of Perl code you wrote above to C++/Qt? I will post that for you if that's what you want (no charge!).

If you will let me except your offer to do that I would really appreciate it!
I would be more than happy to compensate you for doing that!
Just let me know.
Thanks!

Cougar 0

@JonB said in Questions Concerning colorizing text in Ubuntu terminal.:

You are mixing your expectations of what should happen in a terminal versus creating Qt *windows^ and thinking the same code will work there.
You can do what the Perl script does equally from any C or C++ program. Just write the same sequences to stdout, and if you run it from a terminal/Command Prompt it will behave like the Perl script.

I thought the same code would work, No, I just like seeing the difference.
A car's engine cannot run on water, it takes gasoline.
But you can see the difference in the two.
The problem with my post is that there are two different subjects and I believe that is where I confused some you guys and started upsetting some people, of which I never meant to do that.
Now that I have figured all this out, you were correct from the beginning.
All I need is the following 8 written in Perl, rewritten in C++.

$SIG{__WARN__} = $old;

  $type = "\e[1m\e[91m$type\e[0m" if ($type =~ m/(fatal|fail|error|stop)/i);# bold red
  $type = "\e[91m$type\e[0m" if ($type =~ m/(refused|nodevice|timeout)/i);  # red
  $type = "\e[93m$type\e[0m" if ($type =~ m/(reset|warning|secure|unset)/i);# yellow
  $type = "\e[95m$type\e[0m" if ($type =~ m/(add|update|delete)/i);         # magenta
  $type = "\e[96m$type\e[0m" if ($type =~ m/(list|uplink)/i);               # cyan
  $type = "\e[94m$type\e[0m" if ($type =~ m/(beacon|syncer)/i);             # blue
  $type = "\e[92m$type\e[0m" if ($type =~ m/(stat|kfnew)/i);                # green
  $type = "\e[1m\e[92m$type\e[0m" if ($type =~ m/(info|debug)/i);           # bold green

  # print to stdout if enabled
  print "[$time]\t[$type]\t$msg\n" if $self->{printlog};

Thank you to all who posted and tried to help this old man!
@JonB, I'd be glad to compensate you for doing this, my email address. wpt1114 at yahoo.com
Thanks

JonB

@Cougar-0
I have just seen your post and will translate just these lines to C++ using Qt to do the regular expression matching. I have to go shopping in 30+ minutes time, I hope to have posted it by then.

JonB

@Cougar-0
Here are those Perl lines rewritten in C++ + Qt for the reg exs.

    QString type;
    type = "This is a fatal message";
    //type = "This is a debug message";

    if (type.contains(QRegularExpression("(fatal|fail|error|stop)")))
        type = QString("\e[1m\e[91m%1\e[0m").arg(type);
    if (type.contains(QRegularExpression("(refused|nodevice|timeout)")))
        type = QString("\e[91m%1\e[0m").arg(type);
    if (type.contains(QRegularExpression("(reset|warning|secure|unset)")))
        type = QString("\e[93m%1\e[0m").arg(type);
    if (type.contains(QRegularExpression("(add|update|delete)")))
        type = QString("\e[95m%1\e[0m").arg(type);
    if (type.contains(QRegularExpression("(list|uplink)")))
        type = QString("\e[96m%1\e[0m").arg(type);
    if (type.contains(QRegularExpression("(beacon|syncer)")))
        type = QString("\e[94m%1\e[0m").arg(type);
    if (type.contains(QRegularExpression("(stat|kfnew)")))
        type = QString("\e[92m%1\e[0m").arg(type);
    if (type.contains(QRegularExpression("(info|debug)")))
        type = QString("\e[1m\e[92m%1\e[0m").arg(type);

    qDebug() << type;

You will need #include <QRegularExpression> at the start of your source file. You should put these lines somewhere after the initial QApplication app(argc, argv);.

You will note this is similar to what @SGaist wrote much earlier above. I have stuck to rigidly translating your Perl just as-is.

You have a string variable named type. You need to set it to whatever you want before the code (I show a couple of examples), and after the code it has been changed to the original with the colorizing sequences.

In practice you will want these lines in some re-usable function, so that the outside world can pass in the desired string for type. The function might then output the result string, or it might return that string for use in the caller.

The Perl code as translated will not fare well if the input string contains more than one of the words for different colors (e.g. "This is fatal list info"), but that is how the Perl code has been written.

Finally I would remind you again that this will only show colorized if you send the output to a terminal, e.g. run it as a command-line application in a Windows Command Prompt or Linux xterm. We could adapt this principle to produce, say, a string which you could use on a QLabel in a Qt UI application; just it would not use the same escape sequences as you have (we could do text coloring by HTML which is accepted by a QLabel instead).

Cougar 0

alt text
Thanks @JonB, @SGaist , you guys helped me learn a lot!
Which brings me to this.
Now I understand the code you guys gave is for a stand alone program to be ran in terminal.
The code commands the terminal to colorize what words you tell it to.

Below is the file from my friends program "MasterServer" , named "logevent.cpp"

#include "logger.h"

void Logger::logEvent(const QString &messageType,
                      const QString &message)
{
    // printing to display suppressed?
    if ( ! _suppressDisplay.contains(messageType) and ! _suppressDisplay.contains("all") )
    {
        QString dateTimeStr(QDateTime::currentDateTime().toString("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss:zzz"));
        logPrimitive() << QStringLiteral("[%1][%2]\t%3").arg(dateTimeStr, messageType, message) << endl;
    }

    // printing to logfile suppressed?
    if ( ! _suppressLog.contains(messageType) and ! _suppressLog.contains("all") )
    {
        // write message to log
        QString dateTimeStr(QDateTime::currentDateTime().toString("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss:zzz"));
        writeLogFile( QStringLiteral("[%1][%2]\t%3").arg(dateTimeStr, messageType, message) );
    }
}

I believe this is the file that can be used to insert the ansi escape sequence code in. That has the correct syntax and will compile and be read by my friends program telling the terminal what color to color certain words if they appear.

My bad example!


void Logger::logEvent(const QString &messageType,
                      const QString &message)
*********************************************************************
"INSERT , BUT WITH ALL THE CORRECT CODE /SYNTAX!
if (type.contains(QRegularExpression("(fatal|fail|error|stop)")))
        type = QString("\e[1m\e[91m%1\e[0m").arg(type);
    if (type.contains(QRegularExpression("(refused|nodevice|timeout)")))
        type = QString("\e[91m%1\e[0m").arg(type);

@JonB , I am using your rewrite code for this bad example. I must admit when I saw your code and it had "type" in it I knew this file had type in it so I was hoping with a little work (rewrite) it would work, but no  luck. 
Now if anyone can see a better place to insert or the correct way of doing this please by all means have at it!
If this cannot be done then It can't be done.

*********************************************************************
{
    // printing to display suppressed?
    if ( ! _suppressDisplay.contains(messageType) and ! _suppressDisplay.contains("all") )
    {
        QString dateTimeStr(QDateTime::currentDateTime().toString("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss:zzz"));
        logPrimitive() << QStringLiteral("[%1][%2]\t%3").arg(dateTimeStr, messageType, message) << endl;
    }

    // printing to logfile suppressed?
    if ( ! _suppressLog.contains(messageType) and ! _suppressLog.contains("all") )
    {
        // write message to log
        QString dateTimeStr(QDateTime::currentDateTime().toString("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss:zzz"));
        writeLogFile( QStringLiteral("[%1][%2]\t%3").arg(dateTimeStr, messageType, message) );
    }
}

Again I want to thank all who replied and tried to help this old man.
I've learned a lot, I just hope most of you still have most of your hair left!
For me, it's been fun!
Thanks!

JonB

@Cougar-0 said in Questions Concerning colorizing text in Ubuntu terminal.:

@JonB , I am using your rewrite code for this bad example. I must admit when I saw your code and it had "type" in it I knew this file had type in it so I was hoping with a little work (rewrite) it would work, but no luck.
Now if anyone can see a better place to insert or the correct way of doing this please by all means have at it!
If this cannot be done then It can't be done.

As I said, I translated the Perl code as-is to do exactly the same.

Here I am guessing the const QString &message parameter to logEvent is the string you want to display/save/pass on with colorizing escape sequences, instead of the original $type Perl variable or the type in the C++. Unlike that example, here we cannot alter the const QString &message input parameter because of the const. So we shall need a new variable to put the escape sequences in. Just change my code to something like:

void Logger::logEvent(const QString &messageType,
                      const QString &message)
{
    QString colorizedMessage(message);

    if (colorizedMessage.contains(QRegularExpression("(fatal|fail|error|stop)")))
        colorizedMessage = QString("\e[1m\e[91m%1\e[0m").arg(colorizedMessage);
    if (colorizedMessage.contains(QRegularExpression("(refused|nodevice|timeout)")))
        colorizedMessage = QString("\e[91m%1\e[0m").arg(colorizedMessage);
    ...
    // Now `colorizedMessage` holds the original `message` with any escape sequences
    // so you can do with it as you will, e.g.
    // printing to display suppressed?
    if ( ! _suppressDisplay.contains(messageType) and ! _suppressDisplay.contains("all") )
    {
        QString dateTimeStr(QDateTime::currentDateTime().toString("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss:zzz"));
        logPrimitive() << QStringLiteral("[%1][%2]\t%3").arg(dateTimeStr, messageType, colorizedMessage) << endl;
    }

    // printing to logfile suppressed?
    if ( ! _suppressLog.contains(messageType) and ! _suppressLog.contains("all") )
    {
        // write message to log
        QString dateTimeStr(QDateTime::currentDateTime().toString("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss:zzz"));
        writeLogFile( QStringLiteral("[%1][%2]\t%3").arg(dateTimeStr, messageType, colorizedMessage) );
    }
}

Cougar 0

@JonB , used your updated file and it started comping beautifully until,

Logger/logevent.cpp:1:6: error: ‘Logger’ has not been declared
    1 | void Logger::logEvent(const QString &messageType,
      |      ^~~~~~
Logger/logevent.cpp:1:29: error: ‘QString’ does not name a type
    1 | void Logger::logEvent(const QString &messageType,
      |                             ^~~~~~~
Logger/logevent.cpp:2:29: error: ‘QString’ does not name a type
    2 |                       const QString &message)
      |                             ^~~~~~~
Logger/logevent.cpp: In function ‘void logEvent(const int&, const int&)’:
Logger/logevent.cpp:4:5: error: ‘QString’ was not declared in this scope
    4 |     QString colorizedMessage(message);
      |     ^~~~~~~
Logger/logevent.cpp:6:9: error: ‘colorizedMessage’ was not declared in this scope
    6 |     if (colorizedMessage.contains(QRegularExpression("update")))
      |         ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Logger/logevent.cpp:6:35: error: ‘QRegularExpression’ was not declared in this scope
    6 |     if (colorizedMessage.contains(QRegularExpression("update")))
      |                                   ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Logger/logevent.cpp:8:9: error: ‘colorizedMessage’ was not declared in this scope
    8 |     if (colorizedMessage.contains(QRegularExpression("check")))
      |         ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Logger/logevent.cpp:8:35: error: ‘QRegularExpression’ was not declared in this scope
    8 |     if (colorizedMessage.contains(QRegularExpression("check")))
      |                                   ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Logger/logevent.cpp:10:5: error: expected primary-expression before ‘...’ token
   10 |     ...
      |     ^~~
Logger/logevent.cpp:21:12: error: ‘_suppressLog’ was not declared in this scope
   21 |     if ( ! _suppressLog.contains(messageType) and ! _suppressLog.contains("all") )
      |            ^~~~~~~~~~~~
Logger/logevent.cpp:24:16: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘dateTimeStr’
   24 |         QString dateTimeStr(QDateTime::currentDateTime().toString("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss:zzz"));
      |                ^~~~~~~~~~~~
      |                ;
Logger/logevent.cpp:25:23: error: ‘QStringLiteral’ was not declared in this scope
   25 |         writeLogFile( QStringLiteral("[%1][%2]\t%3").arg(dateTimeStr, messageType, colorizedMessage) );
      |                       ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Logger/logevent.cpp:25:58: error: ‘dateTimeStr’ was not declared in this scope
   25 |         writeLogFile( QStringLiteral("[%1][%2]\t%3").arg(dateTimeStr, messageType, colorizedMessage) );
      |                                                          ^~~~~~~~~~~
Logger/logevent.cpp:25:84: error: ‘colorizedMessage’ was not declared in this scope
   25 | QStringLiteral("[%1][%2]\t%3").arg(dateTimeStr, messageType, colorizedMessage) );
      |                                                              ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Logger/logevent.cpp:25:9: error: ‘writeLogFile’ was not declared in this scope
   25 |         writeLogFile( QStringLiteral("[%1][%2]\t%3").arg(dateTimeStr, messageType, colorizedMessage) );
      |         ^~~~~~~~~~~~
Logger/logevent.cpp:2:38: warning: unused parameter ‘message’ [-Wunused-parameter]
    2 |                       const QString &message)
      |                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~~~~~
Logger/logevent.cpp: At global scope:
Logger/logevent.cpp:29:1: error: expected unqualified-id before numeric constant
   29 | 0
      | ^
make: *** [Makefile:819: logevent.o] Error 1
cougarxr7@GoneSpy:~/Programs/TestingQt5/MasterServer-Qt5-master/src$

I am beginning to believe we can't get there from here....
Tell me what I did wrong, please.

JonB

@Cougar-0
You were just supposed to replace your existing Logger::logEvent in:

#include "logger.h"

void Logger::logEvent(const QString &messageType,
                      const QString &message)
{

You have either put this somewhere else, or made some mistake earlier in the file, or something unknown. Nothing in the code I gave you would cause these errors by itself.

Logger/logevent.cpp:1:6: error: ‘Logger’ has not been declared

I believe the 1:6 indicates this is occurring on line #1 of the file. As per the code above which you already had, there will need to be some kind of #include "logger.h" before this line, maybe you have removed that.....

Cougar 0

@JonB , Success! We have color text!
I now have code to work with and tweek!
Thank you so very much! I learned a lot!!

Here is the code;

#include "logger.h"

void Logger::logEvent(const QString &messageType,
                      const QString &message)
{
    QString colorizedMessage(message);
     
    if (colorizedMessage.contains(QRegularExpression("update"))) {
        colorizedMessage = QString("\e[1m\e[95m%1\e[0m").arg(colorizedMessage);
    }
    
            if (colorizedMessage.contains(QRegularExpression("check"))) {
        colorizedMessage = QString("\e[97m%1\e[0m").arg(colorizedMessage);
    }
    // Now `colorizedMessage` holds the original `message` with any escape sequences
    // so you can do with it as you will, e.g.
    
    // printing to display suppressed?
    if ( ! _suppressDisplay.contains(messageType) and ! _suppressDisplay.contains("all") )
    {
        QString dateTimeStr(QDateTime::currentDateTime().toString("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss:zzz"));
        logPrimitive() << QStringLiteral("[%1][%2]\t%3").arg(dateTimeStr, messageType, colorizedMessage) << endl;
    }

    // printing to logfile suppressed?
    if ( ! _suppressLog.contains(messageType) and ! _suppressLog.contains("all") )
    {
        // write message to log
        QString dateTimeStr(QDateTime::currentDateTime().toString("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss:zzz"));
        writeLogFile( QStringLiteral("[%1][%2]\t%3").arg(dateTimeStr, messageType, colorizedMessage) );
    }
}

I noticed it only colored update and not the word check.
Not only update but the whole line is colored!
Now that means I have tweeking to do!

JonB

@Cougar-0 said in Questions Concerning colorizing text in Ubuntu terminal.:

I noticed it only colored update and not the word check.

The word check comes in your messageType parameter, not in the message parameter which is where the update ... string is. Hence is does not get colorized.

You would either have to:

Subject the messageType parameter to the same escape sequence injection as you do on the message parameter. That is where factoring the colorizing code into its own function with a parameter would be a very good idea, as shown by @SGaist is his very first response.
First create the whole string to be output (QString fullMessage = QStringLiteral("[%1][%2]\t%3").arg(dateTimeStr, messageType, message)) and then subject that fullMessage to the colorization code before outputting it instead of just the message.

But I said a long time ago I am not volunteering to write all the code... :)