Problems with character input using scanf()

Question

I\'m trying to input a character into a linked list, where the character can be \'A\',\'a\',\'G\',\'g\',\'T\',\'t\',\'C\' or \'c\'.

I\'m not yet familiar with C and

Answer 1

Use

newChar=getche();

This is a nonstandard function that gets a character from the keyboard, echoes to screen.

Answer 2

You don't handle the newline. The %c specifier doesn't skip blanks. Try:

scanf(" %c", &newChar);
    /* ^ <-- Makes `scanf` eat the newline. */

Or maybe add an explicit test.

scanf(...);
if (newChar == '\n')
    continue;

Answer 3

add space to "%c" to catch the newline character. the space charcter is used to catch space characters, tabulations, newline

scanf("%c ",&newChar);

Answer 4

You're leaving the '\n' on stdin:

scanf("%d",&navigate);  
getchar(); // consume the newline character
...
scanf("%c",&newChar);
getchar(); // consume the newline character

Or since you're already using scanf() you can tell scanf itself to take care of the newline character:

scanf("%d\n", &navigate);
....
scanf("%c\n",&newChar);

Even better you can leave it open by adding a space after the format specificer:

scanf("%d ", &navigate);
....
scanf("%c ",&newChar);

Just in case the user wants to do something like: 2<tab key><enter key>

Regardless of how you handle it, the point is you need to consume the newline character.