Problems reading in character

Hi,

I just took up c programming and like it so far. Now I got a problem reading in a character in a program. The program looks like this:


insert

Code:

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#include <stdio.h>

main()
{
    char c1, c2;
    printf("Letter 1: ");
    c1 = getchar();
   
    printf("Letter 2: \n");
    c2 = getchar();
   
    printf("c1 %c, c2 %c", c1, c2);
    if (c1 < c2)
        printf("Letter 1 is before Letter 2.\n");
    else
        printf("Letter 1 is after Letter 2\n");
}

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The program reads in c1, but ignores c2. Anyone knows why?
I have the same problem using scanf (see below).


insert

Code:

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#include <stdio.h>

main()
{
    char c1, c2;
   
    printf("Letter 1: ");
    scanf("%c", &c1);
   
    printf("Letter 2: ");
    scanf("%c", &c2);
   
    printf("\nc1 %c, c2 %c", c1, c2);
    if (c1 < c2)
        printf("\nLetter 1 is before Letter 2.\n");
    else
        printf("\nLetter 1 is after Letter 2\n");
}

---

Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jjohan

The program reads in c1, but ignores c2. Anyone knows why?

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When you entered Letter 1, the newline from the enter was read and stored in c2. There are few ways to deal with this, one solution being to read that newline and discard it before reading Letter 2.

By the way, main() should be int main(void). You might also want to explicitly return 0; from the main function, though this is optional as a special case for main if you're compiling with respect to C99 or later.

Using scanf with the %c format specifier is equivalent to using getchar*. If you think about what you type, you type a letter (e.g. 'x'), then you hit the enter key. The enter key sends a newline character to the program, so your first getchar gets the 'x', the second one gets the newline ('\n'). Take a look at this link for more info and one way to clear/flush the input buffer up to the newline -- note, fflush(stdin) is NOT the way.

And I would stick with the getchar version, it's a bit clearer, IMO. Note, however that getchar returns an int (see here) -- this is so it can return all possible chars, as well as special values like EOF. Thus you should declare c1 and c2 to be of type int. And if you really wanted to be thorough, you should check both c1 and c2 for EOF before you compare.

* I'm not feeling 100% sure that the two are completely equivalent, so as a caveat, there may be minor differences. But as far as your issue is concerned, they're the same.

I tried a
#include <windows.h>
and
Sleep(2000); // wait 2 seconds

between c1 and c2 input

and found it was unlikely that a character would go in as c1 and "enter" command would go into c2 but I could be wrong. please explain if you can correct me.


Then I found a line from this page very useful that fixed the problem
FAQ > Flush the input buffer - Cprogramming.com

FAQ > Flush the input buffer

Sleeping won't help. The enter character is in the input buffer once you press enter, and it waits there until it is removed by a function like getchar, scanf, fgets, etc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 4eric

...and found it was unlikely that a character would go in as c1 and "enter" command would go into c2 but I could be wrong. please explain if you can correct me.

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Run this, and follow the instructions:

Code:

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#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
    int c1, c2;

    printf("Enter a single letter: ");
    fflush(stdout);

    c1 = getchar();
    c2 = getchar();

    printf("You entered: %c\n",c1);

    if(c2 == '\n')
        printf("c2 contains a newline\n");

    return 0;
}

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by 4eric

and found it was unlikely that a character would go in as c1 and "enter" command would go into c2 but I could be wrong. please explain if you can correct me.

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The input is line buffered by default is nearly all C programming systems by default.

Tim S.

thank you very much read the posting

Quote:

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Sleeping won't help. The enter character is in the input buffer once you press enter, and it waits there until it is removed by a function like getchar, scanf, fgets, etc.

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I am out of this web forum
Goodbye

Thank you all for all help. Appreciated.