Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!nather From: nather@ut-emx.UUCP (Ed Nather) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: ReadKey like Function in C Message-ID: <17228@ut-emx.UUCP> Date: 17 Aug 89 14:02:51 GMT References: <148@trigon.UUCP> <225800206@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <19095@mimsy.UUCP> Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas Lines: 30 In article <19095@mimsy.UUCP>, chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes: > In article <1677@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> davidsen@sungod.crd.ge.com (ody) writes: > >[...] Therefore, since > >kbhit() and getch() are probably the widest spread, I would suggest that > >the MS-DOS haters would still like to adopt this convention, since it > >would simplify porting programs to other operating systems. > > What does `kbhit()' mean when stdin is a socket? How about in a VMS > batch job? > > What does getch() do at end of file? > > Before you settle onas a standard across hundreds of systems, be sure > can well-defined everywhere. Another question: if we adopt kbhit() do we debug it first, or continue the bugs into the next generation? As an example, kbhit() as implemented in MS-DOS has an undocumented "feature" I had to program around: when the character input on the keyboard is the Ctrl-C code, and kbhit() is invoked to see if a character is waiting, it takes it upon itself to abort the program under execution. I doubt we'd want to perpetuate such a lousy example of the desired function. -- Ed Nather Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin