GCC Middle and Back End API Reference
Data Fields
color_cap Struct Reference

Data Fields

const char * name
const char * val
unsigned char name_len
bool free_val

Detailed Description

The context and logic for choosing default –color screen attributes (foreground and background colors, etc.) are the following. – There are eight basic colors available, each with its own nominal luminosity to the human eye and foreground/background codes (black [0 %, 30/40], blue [11 %, 34/44], red [30 %, 31/41], magenta [41 %, 35/45], green [59 %, 32/42], cyan [70 %, 36/46], yellow [89 %, 33/43], and white [100 %, 37/47]). – Sometimes, white as a background is actually implemented using a shade of light gray, so that a foreground white can be visible on top of it (but most often not). – Sometimes, black as a foreground is actually implemented using a shade of dark gray, so that it can be visible on top of a background black (but most often not). – Sometimes, more colors are available, as extensions. – Other attributes can be selected/deselected (bold [1/22], underline [4/24], standout/inverse [7/27], blink [5/25], and invisible/hidden [8/28]). They are sometimes implemented by using colors instead of what their names imply; e.g., bold is often achieved by using brighter colors. In practice, only bold is really available to us, underline sometimes being mapped by the terminal to some strange color choice, and standout best being left for use by downstream programs such as less(1). – We cannot assume that any of the extensions or special features are available for the purpose of choosing defaults for everyone. – The most prevalent default terminal backgrounds are pure black and pure white, and are not necessarily the same shades of those as if they were selected explicitly with SGR sequences. Some terminals use dark or light pictures as default background, but those are covered over by an explicit selection of background color with an SGR sequence; their users will appreciate their background pictures not be covered like this, if possible. – Some uses of colors attributes is to make some output items more understated (e.g., context lines); this cannot be achieved by changing the background color. – For these reasons, the GCC color defaults should strive not to change the background color from its default, unless it's for a short item that should be highlighted, not understated. – The GCC foreground color defaults (without an explicitly set background) should provide enough contrast to be readable on any terminal with either a black (dark) or white (light) background. This only leaves red, magenta, green, and cyan (and their bold counterparts) and possibly bold blue. Default colors. The user can overwrite them using environment variable GCC_COLORS.

Field Documentation

bool color_cap::free_val

Referenced by parse_gcc_colors().

const char* color_cap::name

Referenced by colorize_stop(), and parse_gcc_colors().

unsigned char color_cap::name_len

Referenced by parse_gcc_colors().

const char* color_cap::val

Referenced by colorize_stop(), and parse_gcc_colors().

The documentation for this struct was generated from the following file: