Thread: Non-blocking getchar()

Hello,

Because the standard C library does not provide a non-blocking function to read the keyboard input,
I decided to modify the lowlevel standard input in order to make the function getchar() non-blocking.

Here is the code:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <termios.h>


struct termios initial_settings,
               new_settings;



int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
  int n;

  unsigned char key;



  tcgetattr(0,&initial_settings);

  new_settings = initial_settings;
  new_settings.c_lflag &= ~ICANON;
  new_settings.c_lflag &= ~ECHO;
  new_settings.c_lflag &= ~ISIG;
  new_settings.c_cc[VMIN] = 0;
  new_settings.c_cc[VTIME] = 0;

  tcsetattr(0, TCSANOW, &new_settings);

  while(1)
  {
    n = getchar();

    if(n != EOF)
    {
      key = n;

      if(key == 27)  /* Escape key pressed */
      {
        break;
      }

    /* do something useful here with key */
    }
  }

  tcsetattr(0, TCSANOW, &initial_settings);

  return(0);
}

Using this code, getchar() returns immediately and returns the key pressed by the user or, in case no key has been pressed it returns "EOF" which is equivalent to -1.

Now I want to port this code to the windows platform using the MinGW compiler.

My question is, because termios.h is not available on windows, which windows-api do I need in order to make the function getchar() non-blocking?

Regards.

Read the FAQ perhaps?
There's a "how to read keyboard without waiting" one, I'm reasonably sure.

Though some other mousy posters would just claim that was a guess.