Originally Posted by
laserlight
The "three numbers which getchar gets" sounds fishy. It is true that getchar returns an int, but normally we would say "three characters which getchar gets". I'm guessing that what your teacher had in mind was to read three characters and store them in the different bytes of say, an int.
However, unless you have been taught the idea of bit manipulation, this is just a mathematical trivia question that will not serve you well out of context.
If that problem was just an extra quiz then that is not unusual. If it is actually related to what is in the syllabus, then you probably should discuss it with him, then contact the administration if he refuses to help you.