cprintf - display formatted colored text in Command Window

Displays sprintf-formatted strings in the Command Window using the specified color/underline style

Syntax:

count = cprintf(style,format,...)

Description:

CPRINTF processes the specified text using the exact same FORMAT arguments accepted by the built-in SPRINTF and FPRINTF functions.

CPRINTF then displays the text in the Command Window using the specified STYLE argument. The accepted styles are those used for Matlab's syntax highlighting (see: File / Preferences / Colors / M-file Syntax Highlighting Colors), and also user-defined colors.

The possible pre-defined STYLE names are:

'Text' - default: black

'Keywords' - default: blue

'Comments' - default: green

'Strings' - default: purple

'UnterminatedStrings' - default: dark red

'SystemCommands' - default: orange

'Errors' - default: light red

'Hyperlinks' - default: underlined blue

'Black','Cyan','Magenta','Blue','Green','Red','Yellow','White'

STYLE beginning with '-' o '_' will be underlined. For example:

'-Blue' => underlined blue, like 'Hyperlinks'

'_Comments' => underlined green

STYLE beginning with '*' will be bold (R2011b+ only). For example:

'*Blue' is bold blue;

'*Comments' is bold green etc.

Note: Matlab does not currently support both bold and underline, only one of them can be used in a single cprintf command. But of course bold and underline can be mixed by using separate commands.

STYLE colors can be specified in 3 variants:

[0.1, 0.7, 0.3] - standard Matlab RGB color format in the range 0.0-1.0

[26, 178, 76] - numeric RGB values in the range 0-255

'#1ab34d' - Hexadecimal format in the range '00'-'FF' (case insensitive). 3-digit HTML RGB format is also accepted: 'a5f' = 'aa55ff'

STYLE can be underlined by prefixing - : -[0,1,1] or '-#0FF' is underlined cyan

STYLE can be made bold by prefixing * : '*[1,0,0]' or '*#F00' is bold red

STYLE is case-insensitive and accepts unique (non-ambiguous) partial strings (for example, 'cy' instead of 'cyan').

Usage examples (see results in the attached screenshot):

cprintf; % displays the demo

cprintf('text', 'regular black text');

cprintf('hyper', 'followed %s','by');

cprintf('key', '%d colored', 4);

cprintf('-comment','& underlined');

cprintf('err', 'elements\n');

cprintf('cyan', 'cyan');

cprintf('_green', 'underlined green');

cprintf(-[1,0,1], 'underlined magenta');

cprintf('*blue', 'and *bold* (R2011b+ only)\n');

cprintf([1,0.5,0],'and multi-\nline orange\n');

Bugs and suggestions:

Please send to Yair Altman (altmany at gmail dot com)

Warning:

This code heavily relies on undocumented and unsupported Matlab functionality. It works on Matlab 7+, but use at your own risk!

A technical description of the implementation can be found at: https://UndocumentedMatlab.com/articles/cprintf

See details & current limitations in the main help section