Thread: while loop problem

The problem is you're reading characters with scanf using the %c format specifier (or rather it is how you are currently using the %c format specifier and processing user input). At the first scanf call you enter an integer followed by the Enter key. The number is parsed and stored into your var variable. The newline character remains in the input buffer/stream. When you get to the scanf calls in the loop, it is looking for a single character and finds one - that pesky newline character - and reads that from the stream and continues on with the loop. You expect it to stop and wait for you to enter something but its already too late.

The second time through the while loop there is nothing available in the input buffer to read so the scanf call then waits for input from the user (you). Again, you can type a character and again you press Enter which once more results in two characters being stored in the input buffer, the one you really want plus that newline character. This means the second run through the loop processes the character you mean to but the third time through that newline char is once again mucking things up. You see where I'm going with this?

The easiest way to deal with this is to alter slightly the scanf call (the one in the while loop) from this:

Code:

scanf("%c",&varletter[letnum]);

To this:

Code:

scanf(" %c",&varletter[letnum]);

There is a subtle difference here, the leading space tells scanf to ignore leading whitespace (newline/tabs/spaces). The effect of that is that it will eat up and throw away the newline character and then wait for more user input as you are wanting it to. Of course other methods to solving this issue are to use entirely different means for reading/parsing user input other than scanf.