waitkey

From October 2018 to present

Single-file portable library to detect key pressing and to set colors when using terminals. It offers functions compatible with GNU/Linux and Windows. No need for external dependencies.

The idea is to provide a function that waits for the user to press any key and return its code. The key pressed is not echoed on the screen.

// adds the actual implementation with this inclusion
#define WK_IMPLEMENTATION
#include "waitkey.h"

...

int input = WkWaitKey();
if (input == WKK_UP) {
    printf("You pressed up arrow\n");
}

The WkWaitKey function can detect every printable ASCII character and some special keys (e.g. arrows, insert, page down).

Other functions:

WkGetKeyName: returns the name of a key (e.g. “WKK_A” for WKK_A).
WkGetTerminal: returns the name of the current terminal (e.g. “xterm”).
WkSetColor: set the current foreground and/or background color.
WkResetColor: set the foreground and background colors to its default.
WkGetScreenSize: returns the amount of rows and columns in the screen.

Supported terminals

Currently this implementation can identify and work with the following terminals:

xterm
linux
windows

By default, xterm (GNU/Linux) or windows (Windows) is used if no terminal can be identified.

How to use

Just copy waitkey.h to your project and include it wherever needed. You must set the macro WK_IMPLEMENTATION before one (and only one) of the inclusions to add the actual implementation (because everything is inside the header file).

Why not use the library XYZ?

The main goal here is to provide a minimal waitkey functionality without depending on extra libraries and provide support for both GNU/Linux and Windows. If you need something more ~~fancy~~ complete, you probably should use ncurses or other stuff.

License

All code in this repository is available under MIT License.