SDL - TTF - font not loading - c++

Question

I am having Problem loading SDL_TTF font.
my program is so big, so there's a piece of code which is creating problem.
TTF_Font *font = NULL;
SDL_Color textColor = {255, 255, 255};
if(SDL_Init() == -1 || TTF_Init() == -1)
return 0;
font = TTF_OpenFont("calibri.ttf", 28);
if(font == NULL)
return 0;
Now please tell me why the funtion TTF_OpenFont is not working.
font remains NULL after the funtion and the program exits...
EDIT:
I cannot cout or printf TTF_GetError() but i used breakpoints to see which function is not working correctly and found the function TTF_OpenFont() returning null every time.
(BTW if there any way to print the Erroe on screen the tell please).
TTF_Init() is working correctly.
FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE ASKING TO INSTALL SDL_TTF SEPARATELY:
I have written the link below from which i am learning SDL in first tutorial it guides how to install SDL and integrate it which project, In 3rd lesson comes the SDL_IMAGE extension library which is to be needed to install separately (which i did and used all image functions easily), In 7th lesson it didn't teach how to install SDL_TFF rather says to do the same steps as for SDL_IMAGE but this time for SDL_TTf so i downloaded SDL_TTF and intalled and you know the rest after....
Windows 8.1, CodeBlocks, MinGW32, SDL1
Here's the link i am learning SDL from
SDL Tutorials
This is how i installed the Extension Library(SDL_TTF)
Setting Up Extention Library

Answer 1

If font is NULL you should use TTF_GetError to know what went wrong.
If the error message is opaque you may want then to take a look at TTF_OpenFont source.

Answer 2

Suggestions:
1) substitute this code for TTF_Init():
if(TTF_Init()==-1) {
printf("TTF_Init: %s\n", TTF_GetError());
exit(2);
}
2) Make sure you call it before any other SDL_ttf functions.
If you're still having problems, please specify
your platform (Windows? Linux?)
how you installed your TTF fonts.
3) See also: https://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_ttf/docs/SDL_ttf.html
===================================================================
I'm sorry you're still having problems displaying fonts. A few additional suggestions:
1) I'm sure the tutorial you're using is very good. But you can't assume that just because you followed all the steps, you didn't inadvertantly miss something. To resolve the problem, you're going to have to "look beyond" the tutorial.
2) For starters, we need to confirm whether or not TTF_Init() succeeded. We must be able to see TTF_Init() return status, and TTF_GetError() messages.
Q: What is the return value of TTF_Init?
There are several ways you can display "TTF_GetError":
Start your program from a command prompt ("cmd"):printf("TTF_Init: %s\n", TTF_GetError());
Copy the error to a string and look at it under a debugger: char[80] msg; strcpy (msg, TTF_GetError());
Use a Win32 MessageBox to display the error in a pop-up: MSDN - MessageBox function
3) Make sure you have these .dll's on your filesystem:
libfreetype*.dll
SDL2_ttf*.dll
zlib*.dll
4) Look at the fonts you have installed on your filesystem, for example: C:\Windows\Fonts\*.ttf
See also SDL_ttf - Font directory/Where do fonts go?

Answer 3

PROBLEM SOLVED.
Thanks EveryOne for giving your time...
the problem was program was not recognizing font(candara )
so it copy pasted in my project folder.

Answer 4

I know this was already answerd but i ran into a similar problem with SDL2_ttf under Visual Studio 2015 and want to share my solution to help maybe others in the future.
My problem was that when i started my SDLe application that used SDLe_ttf it could not load the font that was placed in the same directory. But when i executed the the build executable manualy from the command line everything was fine.
I think the problem is that Visual Studio 2015 executes the build executable from a different directory and since i used only the font file name(Sans.ttf) it could not load the font because it treats it as a relative path.
My soultion was to just prefix the font file name with the execution directory which can be optained by calling SDL_GetBasePath.