The loop does not repeat itself! Why?

I am trying to use a sentinel value to control the loop. However, if I set the sentinel value to be a char, to be entered from keyboard, the loop never repeats itself. But if I set the sentinel value to be an int such as 1, it worked.

The code is as following. Could you please help me out?

Code:

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Code:

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int main(void)
{
    double miles, kms;
    char sentinel;
    printf("Run the conversion program (y/n)?  ");
    scanf("%c", &sentinel);
   
    while (sentinel=='y')
    {
          printf("Enter the distance in miles>  ");
          scanf("%lf", &miles);
          kms=miles*1.609;
          printf("You traveled %.3f kilometers.\n\n", kms);
         
                printf("Run the conversion program (y/n)?  ");
          scanf("%c", &sentinel);
    }         
   
    return (0);
}

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Are you by any chance working with your caps lock turned on... Y (capital) and y (lower) are two different things.

Try it with...

Code:

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while (toupper(sentinel) == 'Y')

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A little trick with scanf("%c"... is to add a leading space before the % sign as in scanf(" %c"... which tells it to ignore everything before the first visible character.

Use a debugger to find out what value was read into sentinel. How is this value connected to the previous scanf call? :)

Alternatively, print the value of sentinel, as an int, after the loop ends to find out what it was.

I added a leading space before % in the scanf statement. Then it worked. But I don't know why.

A whitespace before %c 'eats' all heading whitespaces from your input-line. The first not whitespace without '\n' yourself will be putted in your char variable.

Code:

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while (sentinel=='y')
{
    printf("Enter the distance in miles>  ");
    scanf("%lf", &miles);
    kms=miles*1.609;
    printf("You traveled %.3f kilometers.\n\n", kms);
         
    printf("Run the conversion program (y/n)?  ");
    scanf("%c", &sentinel);
}

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The why... at the point where you ask the user to enter the miles, they enter a value and press enter. The scanf function converts the value and stores it into the miles variable but the newline character remains in the input buffer. Later, when you ask the user if they want to go again, you try to get a character. The leftover newline is a character and is what the scanf function reads. Since the newline character is not 'y' the loop exits and this is why you need the space in that particular scanf call. You gotta be careful when using %c in a scanf call as it will accept and convert any data that happens to be in the input buffer at the time.