Is there a way to get text as soon as possible without waiting for a newline?

Question

I\'m using C. I wrote a very simpe program which prints back the input, using getchar() and putchar() or printf(). Is there any way to make it so as soon as the user types one k

Answer 1

In this simple case, the other answers should suit you fine.

The general solution is to disable line buffering. This depends on the particular console; the following example is Windows-only (untested):

#include 

int main() {
    HANDLE hConsole = GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE);
    DWORD mode;
    GetConsoleMode(hConsole, &mode);
    SetConsoleMode(hConsole, mode & ~ENABLE_LINE_INPUT);
    // ...
}

I assume that the standard C library functions are implemented in terms of ReadConsole and friends; if not, this might not even work. (I'm currently on Linux, so I cannot test this.)