Search code examples
c++sdl-2

How to automatically adjust width for text with SDL2_TTF

I'm working on a score display for my simple 2d SDL_2 Game. Image of game

This is the part of my code where I display the speed (basically just score):

void Renderer::renderText(const char* text, SDL_Rect* destR)
{
   SDL_Surface* surfaceText = TTF_RenderText_Solid(Renderer::font, text, { 255,255,255 });
   SDL_Texture* textureText = SDL_CreateTextureFromSurface(renderer, surfaceText);
   SDL_FreeSurface(surfaceText);

   SDL_RenderCopy(renderer, textureText, NULL, destR);

   SDL_DestroyTexture(textureText);
}

There is the obvious problem that if I have a width for the number "1", the text would be squished a lot of the number was "10000" etc as you would have to fit 5 characters into an SDL_Rect that is only 1 character wide.

I could multiply the width by the number of characters however that wouldn't be very accurate as different characters have different widths.

How would I solve this?

Solution

  • (I only answered this because I found out how and nobody else answered)

    You can do something like this.

    SDL_Rect destR = { x, y, 0, 0 };
TTF_SizeText(font, text, &destR.w, &destR.h);

    Basically, TTF_SizeText enables you to get the native width and height from the text with font. Then you can just multiply the height and width as you wish.