CENTAUR NIGHT ------------- (Windows edition) Version 2.3 1/30/2026 (2/8/2026) https://www.centaur.pw Jon Siragusa <jon@centaur.pw> ABOUT ----- Night converts simplified color codes in a file or string to ANSI codes for styling terminal output. The program accepts file or string input on the command line, but can also be used to process stand-alone Night scripts. This is a pre-compiled Windows console port of Night 2.3 for Linux. It is known to function in Windows 11 PowerShell and Terminal exactly as in Linux, except that this version pauses and prompts for the user to press Enter after execution to terminate the program. When using -s or --string, the program will terminate after execution without prompting. Full documentation for this program is contained in the manual file 'night2.nt', including a table of codes and numerous usage examples. The manual can be read by running the included 'manual.bat' file. Information contained in this manual is the same as that of the Linux version. Stand-alone Night scripts for Windows are not created in the manner described in the manual, but are instead created using a batch file. INSTALLATION ------------ This version of Night was compiled using Visual C++ 2010 on Windows 11 with the default compile-time options. The ZIP archive includes the 'Night' directory containing the following files: night2.exe night2.nt night-2.3-win.txt manual.bat The 'night2.exe' file should be extracted to a new directory. The 'night2.nt' and 'manual.bat' files may optionally be copied to the same directory. COMMAND LINE USAGE ------------------ night2 can be used by opening a terminal window in the same directory as the executable, by associating a file extension with 'night2.exe', or by dragging and dropping a file onto the executable or a shortcut to it in Windows Explorer. The command may be used from within the executable directory prefixed with ".\", or the full path to the program may be given. .\night2 <file> ... cat file | .\night2 .\night2 -s | --string <string> ... .\night2 -a | --remove-ansi <file> ... .\night2 -n | --remove-night <file> ... .\night2 -t | --test .\night2 -h | --help <file> may be any number of files. <string> may be any number of strings. It is not strictly necessary to enclose the string in quotes; all arguments passed to the program will be concatenated. If the program is called with no arguments, input is read from standard input. Once the program has completed execution (except in the case of -s/--string), the user is prompted to press the Enter key to terminate the program. This is implemented in Windows to keep a terminal window from closing before its contents have been read.