How to Open Console Window in a Win32 Application

When you create a basic main()-based application, you get the console window implicitly; but a typical WinMain()-based application does not open a console window – you have to allocate the console and to connect the I/O streams yourself.

Yet, this is not a thing you find described in manuals. Fortunately, it’s simple to do, and the code presented here can be used as-is in all your projects.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <io.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <windows.h>

int APIENTRY WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance,
                     HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
                     LPSTR     lpCmdLine,
                     int       nCmdShow)
{
    AllocConsole();

    HANDLE handle_out = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);
    int hCrt = _open_osfhandle((long) handle_out, _O_TEXT);
    FILE* hf_out = _fdopen(hCrt, "w");
    setvbuf(hf_out, NULL, _IONBF, 1);
    *stdout = *hf_out;

    HANDLE handle_in = GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE);
    hCrt = _open_osfhandle((long) handle_in, _O_TEXT);
    FILE* hf_in = _fdopen(hCrt, "r");
    setvbuf(hf_in, NULL, _IONBF, 128);
    *stdin = *hf_in;

    // use the console just like a normal one - printf(), getchar(), ...
}