Read only one char from cin
Solution 1
The best way to read single characters from a stream in a C++-friendly way is to get the underlying streambuf and use the sgetc()/sbumpc() methods on it. However, if cin is supplied by a terminal (the typical case) then the terminal likely has line buffering enabled, so first you need to set the terminal settings to disable line buffering. The example below also disables echoing of the characters as they are typed.
#include <iostream> // cout, cin, streambuf, hex, endl, sgetc, sbumpc
#include <iomanip> // setw, setfill
#include <fstream> // fstream
// These inclusions required to set terminal mode.
#include <termios.h> // struct termios, tcgetattr(), tcsetattr()
#include <stdio.h> // perror(), stderr, stdin, fileno()
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
{
struct termios t;
struct termios t_saved;
// Set terminal to single character mode.
tcgetattr(fileno(stdin), &t);
t_saved = t;
t.c_lflag &= (~ICANON & ~ECHO);
t.c_cc[VTIME] = 0;
t.c_cc[VMIN] = 1;
if (tcsetattr(fileno(stdin), TCSANOW, &t) < 0) {
perror("Unable to set terminal to single character mode");
return -1;
}
// Read single characters from cin.
std::streambuf *pbuf = cin.rdbuf();
bool done = false;
while (!done) {
cout << "Enter an character (or esc to quit): " << endl;
char c;
if (pbuf->sgetc() == EOF) done = true;
c = pbuf->sbumpc();
if (c == 0x1b) {
done = true;
} else {
cout << "You entered character 0x" << setw(2) << setfill('0') << hex << int(c) << "'" << endl;
}
}
// Restore terminal mode.
if (tcsetattr(fileno(stdin), TCSANOW, &t_saved) < 0) {
perror("Unable to restore terminal mode");
return -1;
}
return 0;
}
Solution 2
The C++ cin model is that the user composes an entire line in the terminal, backspacing and correcting if necessary, then when he is happy, submits the whole line to the program.
You can't easily break that, nor should you, unless you want to take over the entire terminal and, for example, have a little man wandering about a maze controlled by keypresses. To do that use curses.h on Unix systems or conio.h on DOS systems.
webNeat
Updated on July 09, 2022Comments
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webNeat almost 2 years
when reading from
std::cin
even if I want to read only one char. It will wait for the user to insert any number of chars and hitEnter
to continue !I want to read char by char and do some instructions for every char while the user is typing in the terminal.
Example
if I run this program and type
abcd
thenEnter
the result will beabcd abcd
But I want it to be :
aabbccdd
Here is the code :
int main(){ char a; cin >> noskipws >> a; while(a != '\n'){ cout << a; cin >> noskipws >> a; } }
How to do that please ?
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Sean Cline about 10 yearsI don't think there is a platform independent way to do this. See: stackoverflow.com/questions/1798511/…
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webNeat about 10 years@PawełStawarz :
string
doesn't work too, same problem aschar
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webNeat about 10 years@SeanCline : Thanks, the described method worked for me :)
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nhahtdh about 9 yearsWhat the heck is
getche
? -
Sz. almost 5 years+1 for the little man :) (and because it's all correct). But I really should've also -1'ed it, too, for that "DOS systems", since the answer date is apparently 2017, not 1997. ;-p
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Gabitohh over 3 yearsconio header file isnt standar
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J-D3V over 2 yearsI mean, what terminal doesn't have line buffering?