Thread: outputting characters one at a time

Is there a way to make this code output to the screen one character at a time instead of all at once?

Code:

#include<stdio.h>

void main(void)
  {
    int i,j;
    int array[9][9]=  { ' ',' ',' ',' ','*',' ',' ',' ',' ',
	                ' ',' ',' ','*','*','*',' ',' ',' ',
                        ' ',' ','*','*','*','*','*',' ',' ',
                        ' ','*','*','*','*','*','*','*',' ',
                        '*','*','*','*','*','*','*','*','*',
                        ' ','*','*','*','*','*','*','*',' ',
                        ' ',' ','*','*','*','*','*',' ',' ',
                        ' ',' ',' ','*','*','*',' ',' ',' ',
                        ' ',' ',' ',' ','*',' ',' ',' ',' ',
	             };
    for(i=0; i<9; i++)
     {
       for(j=0; j<9; j++)
     {
        printf("%c",array[i][j]);
     }
        printf("\n");
     }

 }

> void main(void
No, main returns an int, and you should have
return 0;
at the end of the function

> printf("%c",array[i][j]);
To ensure you see every character, you need to do this

Code:

printf("%c",array[i][j]);
fflush( stdout );  /* force output of any buffered data */

because standard out is usually buffered, and output only at each newline.

> for(int i=0; i<200000; i++);
At the very least, you will need to keep changing this value every time you change your machine.
It would be better to use a library function like delay(), sleep() or Sleep() if you have them.

Failing that, try one of these

Code:

#include <time.h>

void sleep_seconds ( long seconds ) {
  clock_t limit, now = clock();
  limit = now + seconds * CLOCKS_PER_SEC;
  while ( limit > now )
    now = clock();
}
void sleep_ticks ( long ticks ) {
  clock_t limit, now = clock();
  limit = now + ticks;
  while ( limit > now )
    now = clock();
}

> what do you mean by ticks?
Ticks of the clock.
Exactly which clock is ticking is implementation specific, but it's usually faster than once per second.
The clock being read will increment by 1 each tick.

You would use this function if you wanted to pause for some short period of time which wasn't a multiple of a whole second.

> and how long are they?
Your time.h file tells you that there are CLOCKS_PER_SEC of them in one second.

So, if you wanted to wait for 1/2 a second, it would be
sleep_ticks ( CLOCKS_PER_SEC/2 );

Using these loops in this manner... wouldn't that print one line at a time in the array instead of one character at a time?