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Nov 13th, 2007

"Press any key to continue" type function?

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I've searched all over the place and I cannot seem to find a well working, reliable solution to this that is not platform specific.

Here is what I have:

Main menu of a class (while loop with 0 as exit).
User selects choices.
Choice calls class function to carry out the specific request.

I want the result of each of the functions to stay on screen until the user presses any key (and doesn't have to press enter to confirm it) and then the menu is called again.

Is there an easy way to do this?

PS. I've seen an implementations with cin.get(ch) or cin.ignore(1,0), but neither work in my situation. After a certain function is done, the menu is called as if bypassing the get character line completely.

Thanks!

Last edited by Ratte; Nov 13th, 2007 at 2:23 am.

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Ratte

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Nov 13th, 2007

Re: "Press any key to continue" type function?

Can't be done. Change your message to Press ENTER to continue and just use the standard I/O functions.

WaltP

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Nov 13th, 2007

Re: "Press any key to continue" type function?

how bout using getch() or getche() ?
note. if u're using vc++, both are using leading underscore such as _getch() and _getche()

Garock

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Nov 13th, 2007

Re: "Press any key to continue" type function?

getch() and variants are not cross-platform.

Your best bet is to use the curses library. There are three variants: curses (the oldest and most basic), ncurses (a big improvement), and pdcurses (ditto). Most (if not all) Unix/Linux platforms have at least curses, if not ncurses. PDCurses, in addition to Unix variants, comes available on DOS, OS/2, Windows, Plan 9, and the Amiga.

That covers many desktop systems people will be using (including OS X), but nowhere near all.

Here's an example in another post of mine --doing exactly what you want.

Keep in mind, like WaltP said, there is no truly cross-platform method. Also, once you start using curses you cannot use the standard C/C++ I/O --it is one or the other.

Hope this helps.

Duoas

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Nov 13th, 2007

Re: "Press any key to continue" type function?

I find it interesting that, given the following requirement:

Click to Expand / Collapse Quote originally posted by Ratte ...

I've searched all over the place and I cannot seem to find a well working, reliable solution to this that is not platform specific.

the solutions provided are:

Click to Expand / Collapse Quote originally posted by Garock ...

how bout using getch() or getche() ?
note. if u're using vc++, both are using leading underscore such as _getch() and _getche()

Click to Expand / Collapse Quote originally posted by Duoas ...

getch() and variants are not cross-platform.

Your best bet is to use the curses library. There are three variants: curses (the oldest and most basic), ncurses (a big improvement), and pdcurses (ditto). Most (if not all) [implication being might not work on all] Unix/Linux platforms have at least curses, if not ncurses. PDCurses, in addition to Unix variants, comes available on DOS, OS/2, Windows, Plan 9, and the Amiga. [implication: different packages for different platforms]

That covers many desktop systems people will be using (including OS X), but nowhere near all. [can't be done on all platforms]

IOW: cannot be done, which is what I said originally...

WaltP

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Re: "Press any key to continue" type function?

>IOW: cannot be done, which is what I said originally...
Then again, "cannot be done" is pretty darn useless as an answer. I imagine alternatives were provided because they come close to the requirement even though it isn't an exact match.

Personally, I don't see why there's a need for "any key" when Enter works just fine. Statistics show that when asked to press any key, users will typically press the space bar or the Enter key, so by requiring Enter, you're only removing one key as a potential option in the average case. Supporting the space bar is hardly worth throwing away portability and adding complexity.

Last edited by Narue; Nov 13th, 2007 at 12:38 pm.

Narue

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Nov 13th, 2007

Re: "Press any key to continue" type function?

I must say I'm surprised that there is no simple solution to this in such a complex language.

Actually, ENTER would work just as well for me, however, I do not understand why, but my program skips through the line cin.get(ch) line altogether, so it doesn't ask for anything when it should.

Ratte

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Re: "Press any key to continue" type function?

>I must say I'm surprised that there is no simple solution to this in such a complex language.
That's because you don't fully understand the issues involved.

>my program skips through the line cin.get(ch) line altogether
It doesn't skip anything. cin.get is working as designed, but a prior formatted input request left a newline in the stream. See this for more details.

Narue

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Re: "Press any key to continue" type function?

there is a really easy way to do this....

system("PAUSE");

does it all.

krigath

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Re: "Press any key to continue" type function?

Click to Expand / Collapse Quote originally posted by krigath ...

there is a really easy way to do this....

system("PAUSE");

does it all.

he wants something platform independant. That only works on windows.

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