CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cprintf
Gaurav Butola
Gaurav Butola

Reputation: 581

gotoxy() implementation for Linux using printf

I was looking for a substitute of gotoxy() for gcc compiler and found this -

void gotoxy(int x,int y)
{
    printf("%c[%d;%df",0x1B,y,x);
}

I want to know how is it functioning, I mean when do we use [ and ; inside printf, what is 0x1B doing there and how does it take the cursor to the row/column with this code?

I have never seen this type of practice for printf in books,so it would be great If you could point me to a link where I can find about such uses of printf.

Upvotes: 12

Views: 9502

Answers (3)

Jonathon Reinhart
Jonathon Reinhart

Reputation: 137438

This is using terminal escape codes to position the cursor.

"\x1B" is the escape character that tells your terminal that what comes next is not meant to be printed on the screen, but rather a command to the terminal (or most likely terminal emulator)

The trailing 'f' indicates that you want to force the cursor position somewhere, indicated by the coordinates that precede it.

Force Cursor Position   <ESC>[{ROW};{COLUMN}f

So if you call gotoxy(4,2), it ends up sending the escape sequence "(ESC)[2;4f" where ESC is the byte 0x1B.

Upvotes: 7

500 - Internal Server Error
500 - Internal Server Error

Reputation: 28839

That is known as an ANSI escape code. I haven't seen those used in a while. Here's a page that explains about them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code

Upvotes: 1

Greg Hewgill
Greg Hewgill

Reputation: 993383

These are called ANSI Escape Sequences and are derived from the DEC VT100 display terminal which was introduced in 1978.

Upvotes: 3

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