How to print to a desired screen location in C

Question

While coding in C and printing output to the screen, can we print to a different position on the screen without using \t\t\t? The location should be specified by coordinates of some kind.

E.g. printf("hallo hai")

The above print message would appear where we desire. It should not use \t\t\t but instead be placed at a numerically expressed position.

You need to reword your question, I doubt that anyone will understand what you mean. — Jabberwocky, May 08 '17 at 16:17
You can calculate the number of spaces you need and print those first. If you want to position the cursor at specific coordinates, though, then that'll depend on how your console handles things (it's not a C thing, but depends on other parts of your system). Try a terminal control library like ncurses, or printing ANSI terminal control escape sequences. — Dmitri, May 08 '17 at 16:23
By "different position" do you mean different x coordinate or y coordinate? — Sniper, May 08 '17 at 16:37

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 08 '17 at 16:52

I would suggest you to go with curses or its updates ncurses.

The following code prints hello world using ncurses :

/*
  "Hello, world!", ncurses style.
*/


#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>                  /*  for sleep()  */
#include <curses.h>


int main(void) {

    WINDOW * mainwin;


    /*  Initialize ncurses  */

    if ( (mainwin = initscr()) == NULL ) {
    fprintf(stderr, "Error initialising ncurses.\n");
    exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }


    /*  Display "Hello, world!" in the centre of the
    screen, call refresh() to show our changes, and
    sleep() for a few seconds to get the full screen effect  */

    mvaddstr(13, 33, "Hello, world!");
    refresh();
    sleep(3);


    /*  Clean up after ourselves  */

    delwin(mainwin);
    endwin();
    refresh();

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

How to print to a desired screen location in C

1 Answers1