UNIX FAQ Version 2.1 92/12/04 -- Question 4.1
UNIX FAQ Version 2.1 92/12/04 -- Question 4.1
How do I read characters from a terminal without requiring the user
to hit RETURN?
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Check out cbreak mode in BSD, ~ICANON mode in SysV.
If you don't want to tackle setting the terminal parameters
yourself (using the "ioctl(2)" system call) you can let the stty
program do the work - but this is slow and inefficient, and you
should change the code to do it right some time:
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
int c;
printf("Hit any character to continue\n");
/*
* ioctl() would be better here; only lazy
* programmers do it this way:
*/
system("/bin/stty cbreak"); /* or "stty raw" */
c = getchar();
system("/bin/stty -cbreak");
printf("Thank you for typing %c.\n", c);
exit(0);
}
You might like to check out the documentation for the "curses"
library of portable screen functions. Often if you're interested
in single-character I/O like this, you're also interested in
doing some sort of screen display control, and the curses library
provides various portable routines for both functions.
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