Thread: getch() in while(TRUE) and with statemachine

Hi C-Forum,

i have a question... i try to program a robot spider. therefore i use an endless-loop with while(true) and a switch(case=state) statemachine to switch in the different movement patterns. My problem is that a movement pattern case needs ~2 seconds time to move the spiders legs and if i for example hold the button "w" (forward) a long time, i see "wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww" in the console and the spider walks forward for 5 minutes without any option to stop (okay ctrl + z works). i want my program not to read the next "w" but i want it to read when the next loop begins.
do you know how to do that?

This is my main-program:

Code:

void main() {

void statemachine(int);

while (1){
  if(kbhit())
  {
  in = getch(); //catching w,a,s,d, ESC
  }else{
  in = '#'; // in = # if nothing is pushed
  }
  statemachine(in);
  
}//End while
}//End main

this version of my statemachine has the following cases:

w -> going forward
a -> turning left
s -> going backwards
d -> turning right
n -> neutral: waiting for a command
esc -> close program and roll to init-position.

i see the following on the console in the worst case:

wwwwwwwwwww
state forward (needs 2 seconds...)
state forward (needs 2 seconds...)
state forward (needs 2 seconds...)
d
state forward (needs 2 seconds...)
state forward (needs 2 seconds...)
state forward (needs 2 seconds...)
...
state turning right (needs 2 seconds...)
state neutral
...

BUT i want it like this:

wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
state forward (needs 2 seconds...)
state neutral
state neutral
state neutral
w
state forward (needs 2 seconds...)
w
state forward (needs 2 seconds...)
state neutral
d
state turning right (needs 2 seconds...)
state neutral
...

thank you

>void main

Main returns int, not void.

void statemachine(int);

that should of caused an error - you cannot declare a function
within a function.

CodeSlapper mentioned a timer, one idea is to look into the basic
Windows API (if your using Windows) and check up on the Sleep()
function. 1000 mils = 1 second in time format.

@CodeSlapper how can i do this? how can i ignore input for a couple of seconds?
now when i push "w" 2 seconds: i see "wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww" in the console and then the state "forward" is used many times and a long time. Thats why there are "sleep(2)"s in all my states yet in ordner to simulate the states.

wwwwwwwwwww //Now i push w 2 seconds
state forward (4 seconds...)
state forward (4 seconds...)
state forward (4 seconds...)
//we see forward states more then 2 seconds (example 12 seconds)
d //d is ingored because too much w are saved.
state forward (4 seconds...)
state forward (4 seconds...)
state forward (4 seconds...)
...
state turning right (4 seconds...)
state neutral

my spider would crash the wall