If you want to read a single character from standard input, you can use the
getchar function. This function takes no parameters, but
reads the next character from stdin as an unsigned char, and
returns its value, converted to an integer. Here is a short program that uses
getchar:
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int input_character;
printf("Hit any key, then hit RETURN.\n");
input_character = getchar();
printf ("The key you hit was '%c'.\n", input_character);
printf ("Bye!\n");
return 0;
}
Note that because stdin is line-buffered, getchar will not
return a value until you hit the <RETURN> key. However,
getchar still only reads one character from stdin, so if
you type hellohellohello at the prompt, the program above will
still only get once character. It will print the following line, and
then terminate:
