Well, you need to consider the scope of the variable and "do the right thing" - it's not necessarily right to put them all at the beginning of the code. Intializing variables where you declare the variable is definitely a good idea, but sometimes it doesn't work that way.
[Actually, I don't think tabstops comment is correct - the variables are just temporaries within the loop anyways].
Your code is still eating a char from the input and not using it for numeric input.
--
Mats
