getchar() on lines by themselves. As long as you use these getchar()s for discarding Enter
keypresses, you can ignore the compiler warnings.
You also can request the two initials by requiring the Enter keypress after the user enters the two
initials, like this:
Click here to view code image
printf("What are your two initials?\n");
firstInit = getchar();
lastInit = getchar();
getchar();If the user types GP and then presses Enter, the G resides in the firstInit variable and the P
resides in the lastInit variable.
A Little Faster: getch()
A character input function named getch() helps eliminate the leftover Enter keypress that
getchar() leaves. getch() is unbuffered—that is, getch() gets whatever keypress the user
types immediately and doesn’t wait for an Enter keypress. The drawback to getch() is that the user
can’t press the Backspace key to correct bad input. For example, with getchar(), a user could
press Backspace if he or she typed a B instead of a D. The B would be taken off the buffer by the
Backspace, and the D would be left for getchar() to get after the user pressed Enter. Because
getch() does not buffer input, there is no chance of the user pressing Backspace. The following
code gets two characters without an Enter keypress following each one:
Click here to view code image
printf("What are your two initials?\n");
firstInit = getch();
lastInit = getch();getch() is a little faster than getchar() because it doesn’t wait for an Enter keypress before
grabbing the user’s keystrokes and continuing. Therefore, you don’t need a standalone getch() to
get rid of the \n as you do with getchar().
Warninggetch() does not echo the input characters to the screen as getchar() does.
Therefore, you must follow getch() with a mirror-image putch() if you want the
user to see onscreen the character he or she typed. To echo the initials, you could do
this:
Click here to view code image
printf("What are your two initials?\n");
firstInit = getch();
putch(firstInit);
lastInit = putch();