Using 'enter' to return

Hi,

Your question is not so clear,give some code.Then only i can made clear about your doubt

cheers
deepu

Ok
Sure,

The main menu looks like this:

      printf("\n\nMain Menu:\n");
      printf("1) ASCII to binary generator\n");
      printf("2) Fractions\n");
      printf("3) Age Calculator\n");
      printf("4) Matching Brackets\n");
      printf("5) Sorting\n");
      printf("6) Logging\n");
      printf("7) Exit\n");
      printf("Select your option: ");

So if the user selects 1, they'll go into the ASCII to binary generator. There they can input a string and get the binary equivalent.


The additional requirement is:

If, instead of inputting a string,  the user just presses enter, they will be returned to the main menu.


So if my scanf is putting the input in to a string, is there any way to check that string to see if the user has just pressed enter?

thanks

Sunnycoder,

So instead of scanf I should use fgets?

that way I can check if the string just contains "\n"   ?

Ta

But with fgets()

doesnt it take a "stream" as an argument? Like a file pointer. What would be the stream in my case?


atm Im using

scanf("%s", toSort);

thanks

Hi Benjamin_Barrett,

stream will be stdin ... By default each C program has 3 streams,
stdin - standard input
stdout - standard output
stderr - stnadard error

These are defined in your stdio.h file

Cheers!
sunnycoder

Ah!! many thanks Sunnycoder

Ive got my lunch now so I'll try it out and get back to you in about 2 hrs

thanks
Benjamin

hi

no need to check '\n' in the strings
you can check '\0' like here

if(name[0]=='\0')   // suppose name is your string gets from the user
i think it will work

cheers
deepu

Hi deepudeepam,

"\0" and "\n\0" are two different unidentical strings.

Cheers!
sunnycoder

hi sunnycoder,

That i know but i tried it in VC++ 6 compaler.I got out put thats why i post it.
here is my code

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>

void main()
{
      char name[50];
      
      gets(name);
      if(name[0]=='\0')
      {
            printf("Enter");
      }
      else
      {
            printf("\n%s",name);
      }
      getch();
}

i think this will clear it out

cheers
deepu

I am not sure if VC++ 6.0 has conio.h ... that aside gets() is an unreliable input function ... Read its help page in documentation on your system.

The most robust way of accepting input from user in C is to use fgets ... You get to control how much you read, so no memory thrashing possible ...
Next you have all avenues open for performing all kinds of validation checks on the strings and then you can convert it to whatever data type you desire.

hi,
   <conio.h> is there,

actually i just impliment his problem in a simple way i think.Thank you for ur valuable information.

So i can change like this
fgets(name,50,stdin);
if(name[0],'\n')
{
    printf("Enter");
}
else
{
    printf("\n%s",name);
}

so it is so reliable right

thats my point ... name[0] will be \n and not \0 .. thanks :)

why so much fuss

take a look at the following code

char ch[100];
gets(ch);

if(ch[0] == NULL)
      printf("Enter pressed");
else
      printf("ch = %s\n",ch);

so you just have to check whether the first character of the string is NULL(\0) or not, if NULL then only enter was pressed, so you can show the menu again.

or you can do this

char ch[100];
ch[0]=getchar();
if(ch[0] == '\n')
      printf("Enter Pressd");
else
      {
            gets(ch+1);
            printf("ch = %s",ch);
      }

you can any of the above.

Hope this helps

Nafis

ok I really like the idea of fgets, as I can control the number of chars as user inputs.

I changed the code, compiled ok. But...

When I ran it, it went to the menu. I choose '1'.

Immediately the ASCII2BIN generator ran & printed out 00001010. I didnt entyer anything
*then* returned to the main menu.

included the first part of my code below

int main(void)
{
      int optionStats[NUM_OPTION_STATS];
      char lastOutput[STATS_BUF_LEN];

      int check;
      int menuOption[2];

      printf("\n\nMain Menu:\n");
      printf("1) ASCII to binary generator\n");
      printf("2) Fractions\n");
      printf("3) Age Calculator\n");
      printf("4) Matching Brackets\n");
      printf("5) Sorting\n");
      printf("6) Logging\n");
      printf("7) Exit\n");
      printf("Select your option: ");

      scanf("%s", &menuOption);

      char option;
      option = menuOption[0];
      
       //Switching on menu option
      switch(option)
      {

      case '1':
            printf("\nASCII to Binary Generator");
            printf("\n---------------------------\n");
            printf("Enter a string (1-5 characters): ");

            
            char toSort[60];
            int length;

                //Change here
            fgets(toSort,5,stdin);

            if(strcmp(toSort, "\n"))
                  {
                  main();
                  }


            //scanf("%s", toSort);





                //redundant code below
            length = strlen(toSort);
            if (length<=5)
                  {
                  asciiBinary(length, toSort);
                  }
            else
                  {      
                  //if string >5 reject
                  printf("\nInputted string is too long. Please re-enter a string 1-5 characters in length\n");
                  }
                  return EXIT_SUCCESS;

            break;


Many thanks for your help guys, I think I mentioned before that my course is an online uni one....so the ExEx people are like my tutors!

Benjamin

Nafis,

Here is a quote striaght out of gets man page

Never use gets(). Because it is impossible to tell without knowing the data in advance how many characters gets() will read, and because gets() will continue to store characters past the end of the buffer, it is extremely dangerous to use. It has been used to break computer security. Use fgets() instead.

Do I need to say more that you should not be using gets ... Use fgets instead ... If you use fgets, \n is read into the buffer ... that is what the entire fuss is all about ...

HTH

That 1010 is the spare \n left in the input buffer after you have scanf'ed your option ...
scanf ("%s\n", ..) should help ...
I would recommend getting rid of scanf's altogether... fgets is safer, more predictable, cleaner ...

Legend!!

cool man, the fgets() way works great.

Point taken about calling main() within main() - its got stack overflow& memory issues written all over it. But I'll ask that as another question.


Once last thing about fgets(), for the 2nd arg should that be the exact length of chars you want to read in? Or should I allow room for control chars?

ie if I want 5 chars from the user is it

fgets(toSort,6,stdin);

Thank you
Benjamin

from the man page

SYNOPSIS
#include <stdio.h>

char *fgets(char *restrict s, int n, FILE *restrict stream);

DESCRIPTION
The fgets() function shall read bytes from stream into the array pointed to by s, until n-1 bytes are read, or a <newline> is read and transferred to s, or an end-of-file condition is encountered.

Assuming that your input is not exhausted, fgets(toSort,6,stdin); would read in 5 bytes of input and place a \0 at the last index

Ah cool. Found a copy of the man pages, will read that first next time.

fyi  justed posted a question on calling main() here....

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21925814/Calling-main-within-main.html