SDL_RenderDebugText(3)

💖 SDL_RenderDebugText(3) 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to the SDL3 FUNCTIONS section of the manual, and today's main character is SDL_RenderDebugText(3). yes she's a function, yes she's from the SDL3 crew, and yes she is literally just here to help you debug. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

SDL_RenderDebugText — draw debug text to an SDL_Renderer. that's it, that's the whole job, and she does it 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <SDL3/SDL_render.h>

bool SDL_RenderDebugText(SDL_Renderer *renderer, float x, float y, const char *str);

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So this function renders a string of text to an SDL_Renderer. cute, right? but hear me out: this is a convenience function for debugging, and it comes with severe limitations. it is not intended to be used for production apps and games. no cap. she's the "quick, print something on screen so i can see what's happening" girlie, not the "ship it to millions of users" girlie 😭

among these limitations:

• It accepts UTF-8 strings, but will only render ASCII characters. it's giving "i'll take your input, i just won't respect all of it" 💀
• It has a single, tiny size (8x8 pixels). you can use logical presentation or SDL_SetRenderScale() to adjust it.
• It uses a simple, hardcoded bitmap font. it does not allow different font selections and it does not support truetype, for proper scaling. no font glow-ups allowed, sorry 🎀
• It does no word-wrapping and does not treat newline characters as a line break. if the text goes out of the window, it's gone. just gone. bye 👋

for serious text rendering, there are several good options, such as SDL_ttf, stb_truetype, or other external libraries. go treat yourself, bestie ✨

On first use, this will create an internal texture for rendering glyphs. This texture will live until the renderer is destroyed. so like, she moves in and she's not leaving until the whole renderer gets demolished 🏠

The text is drawn in the color specified by SDL_SetRenderDrawColor(). so whatever color you set there is the color you get. periodt 🌈

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🎀 FUNCTION PARAMETERS 🎀

• renderer — the renderer which should draw a line of text.
• x — the x coordinate where the top-left corner of the text will draw.
• y — the y coordinate where the top-left corner of the text will draw.
• str — the string to render.

note that x and y are both the top-left corner spot. she anchors from up there, not the middle, not the baseline, top-left. iykyk 💜

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⭐ RETURN VALUE ⭐

Returns true on success or false on failure; call SDL_GetError() for more information. so if she says false, go ask SDL_GetError() what's wrong, she'll tell you 🙈

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🧚 THREAD SAFETY 🧚

This function should only be called on the main thread. main character energy only, do not be passing her off to your little worker threads 👑

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🌈 AVAILABILITY 🌈

This function is available since SDL 3.2.0. so if you're on something older, she's not there yet, sorry bestie 🍓

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• SDL_RenderDebugTextFormat(3)
• SDL_DEBUG_TEXT_FONT_CHARACTER_SIZE(3)

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this one's from the Simple Directmedia Layer girlies, rocking SDL 3.4.18, and it's all yours to read whenever. slay, go debug something, and remember: 8x8 pixels and ASCII only, no exceptions ✨🦋💅