automatic carriage return?

I'm using DJGPP C compiler. Trying sample code. I don't know why this code when run will not let me input the second string to compare. It just seems to automatically hit enter on it and go to asking for input on # of characters to compare.

Code:

---

include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

main()
{
        char        string1[20];
        char        string2[20];
        int        length;

        printf("\nEnter first string to compare  :");
        scanf("%s",string1);
       
        printf("\nEnter second string to compare  :");
        scanf("%s",string2);

        printf("\nEnter the number of characters to compare  :");
        scanf("%d",&length);

        if(!strncmp(string1,string2,length))
          printf("The first %d characters of String 1 equals String 2\n",length);
}

---

ok, here's an example of it running:

Code:

---

Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195]
(C) Copyright 1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.

C:\DJGPP\Mystuff>string
Cannot load VDM IPX/SPX support

Enter first string to compare  :Hello world!

Enter second string to compare  :
Enter the number of characters to compare  :8

C:\DJGPP\Mystuff>

---

To know why study this

And call this function after your first call to scanf()

Code:

---

void clear_buffer(void)
{
    int ch;

    while( (ch = getchar() ) != '\n' && ch != EOF );
}

---

ssharish

LOL! ok book was written around/before 94. No Win2k back then. ;)

Thanks for the help! This problem seem to not be present on my Windows 95 machine. Must be an NT/2K/XP OS problem.

And after trying it it appears I will have to call it after every scanf read/call/whatever.

Here's a tip: avoid scanf for user input. Instead prefer fgets possibly followed by sscanf or newline trimming of a string.
http://faq.cprogramming.com/cgi-bin/...&id=1043284385