How to avoid pressing Enter with getchar() for reading a single character only?

Question

In the next code:

#include 

int main(void) {   
  int c;   
  while ((c=getchar())!= EOF)      
    putchar(c); 
  return 0;
}

Answer 1

Since you are working on a Unix derivative (Ubuntu), here is one way to do it - not recommended, but it will work (as long as you can type commands accurately):

echo "stty -g $(stty -g)" > restore-sanity
stty cbreak
./your_program

Use interrupt to stop the program when you are bored with it.

sh restore-sanity

• The 'echo' line saves the current terminal settings as a shell script that will restore them.
• The 'stty' line turns off most of the special processing (so Control-D has no effect, for example) and sends characters to the program as soon as they are available. It means you cannot edit your typing any more.
• The 'sh' line reinstates your original terminal settings.

You can economize if 'stty sane' restores your settings sufficiently accurately for your purposes. The format of '-g' is not portable across versions of 'stty' (so what is generated on Solaris 10 won't work on Linux, or vice versa), but the concept works everywhere. The 'stty sane' option is not universally available, AFAIK (but is on Linux).