Native C++ console screen buffer [closed]

Question

I'm trying to display a game in the console window using a screen buffer but cannot compile it.

I have this simple code:

#include <Windows.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <thread>

int main() {
  const int width = 120, height = 40;

  wchar_t* screen = new wchar_t[width * height];
  HANDLE console = CreateConsoleScreenBuffer(GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE, 0, NULL, CONSOLE_TEXTMODE_BUFFER, NULL);
  SetConsoleActiveScreenBuffer(console);
  DWORD bytesWritten = 0;

  while (true) {
    for (int i = 0; i < width * height; i++) screen[i] = L' ';
    wsprintf(&screen[width + 5], L"Testing");

    WriteConsoleOutputCharacter(console, screen, width * height, {0, 0}, &bytesWritten);
    Sleep(1000 / 30);
  }

  return 0;
}

It won't compile, getting two errors:

test.cpp:16:44: error: cannot convert 'wchar_t*' to 'LPSTR {aka char*}' for argument '1' to 'int wsprintfA(LPSTR, LPCSTR, ...)'

and

test.cpp:18:87: error: cannot convert 'wchar_t*' to 'LPCSTR {aka const char*}' for argument '2' to 'BOOL WriteConsoleOutputCharacterA(HANDLE, LPCSTR, DWORD, COORD, PDWORD)'

How can I get this working and how to do it even better?

I'm using g++ 6.3.0 to compile.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Changed WriteConsoleOutputCharacter() to WriteConsoleOutputCharacterA(), ditched wsprintf(), changed screen[] type from wchar_t* to char* and made my own helper function for displaying on the screen and now it works perfectly!

void toScreen(char*& screen, const int index, const char* text) {
  for (int i = 0; i < strlen(text); i++)
    screen[index + i] = text[i];
}