Console application prints differently than online compiler

Question

I am writing a program for connect 4 that works very well. Only problem is that in visual studio the method

    public static void Display(char[,] board)
    {
        Console.Clear();
        for (int i = 1; i < 8; i++)
        {
            Console.Write(" " + i);
        }
        Console.WriteLine();
        for (int j = 0; j < 15; j++)
        {
            Console.Write("_");
        }
        Console.WriteLine();
        for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++)
        {
            for (int j = 0; j < 7; j++)
            {
                Console.Write("|" + board[i, j]);
            }
            Console.WriteLine('|');
        }
        for (int j = 0; j < 15; j++)
        {
            Console.Write("¯");
        }
        Console.WriteLine();
    }

prints the last for loop too low. It is inadequate. It should be like that (works in repl)

but gets printed like that (in VS)

I tried to use ¯ instead of ‾ but it just printed out question marks ??????????

Note that that's not in Visual Studio. Visual Studio doesn't actually execute your code. Anyway, 1) ¯ isn't a standard ASCII character, so that's probably why it shows ????. See [this question](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5750203/how-to-write-unicode-characters-to-the-console). 2) It appears to be a font difference, or since it's HTML, perhaps they are doing something different with the line-by-line vertical alignment. — ProgrammingLlama, Apr 13 '20 at 03:01

Oguz Ozgul · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-14T06:19:04.930

2

Why not using the good old Box Drawing characters?

You will have an output like this:

public static void Display(char[,] board)
{
    Console.Clear();

    Console.Write(" ");
    for (int i = 1; i < 8; i++)
    {
        Console.Write(" " + i + "  ");
    }
    Console.WriteLine();

    Console.Write("┌");
    for (int j = 0; j < 6; j++)
    {
        Console.Write("───┬");
    }
    Console.WriteLine("───┐");

    for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++)
    {
        for (int j = 0; j < 7; j++)
        {
            Console.Write("│" + " " + board[i, j] + " ");
        }
        Console.WriteLine("│");

        Console.Write(i < 5 ? "├───┼" : "└───┴");
        for (int j = 0; j < 5; j++)
        {
            Console.Write(i < 5 ? "───┼" : "───┴");
        }
        Console.WriteLine(i < 5 ? "───┤" : "───┘");
    }

    Console.WriteLine();
}

edited Apr 14 '20 at 06:19

answered Apr 13 '20 at 07:02

Oguz Ozgul

6,809
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Those are not ASCII characters (which is why the title of the page you linked does not actually contain the word ASCII - unlike your link description) – sepp2k Apr 13 '20 at 11:00
Thank you a lot sire. You are a genius. Can I get some insight on how you have found all of these characters? Where do you look them up when in trouble? – Algo Apr 14 '20 at 00:18
@sepp2k fixed the link description – Oguz Ozgul Apr 14 '20 at 06:20
@Algo been taught them in college, q basic – Oguz Ozgul Apr 14 '20 at 06:21
"Where do you look them up when in trouble?" there is [this pdf document](https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2500.pdf) in the link which contains the Range: 2500–257F from the unicode standard. And if this answer solved your problem, you can tick the check mark and accept it. – Oguz Ozgul Apr 14 '20 at 06:36

Console application prints differently than online compiler

1 Answers1