text prediction C

[toblerone]

hi
i got a proj to make a basic text prediction prog.
initial ideas are good but i need to know if there is a way to read in chars without the user keying enter - so as the user types.

i am a relative amatuer using borland and/or visual C and would really appreciate some help

Does this Q show that im absolutly dumb or is the answer unknown??

[Amaranthine]

I'm an amateur as well so I don't guarantee this will work but could you do it with a WM_CHARDOWN message?

[toblerone]

I cant find a wole lotta info on the WM_CHARDOWN option
but thought of another idea instead....
is it possible to delete a newline character?
something like using the \b ?.. this would mean i could use a scanf then printf to delete the newline necessary to complete the scanf.

[redhead]

There is no standard way of activating on key-press which is what you're trying here.
It is very system dependant, thus in order to help you with this specific issue, you need to tell us what compiler/OS you want this program to run with.

is it possible to delete a newline character?
something like using the '\b' ?.. this would mean i could use a scanf then printf to delete the newline necessary to complete the scanf.

The '\b' is for bell, the '\r' will return the cursor to position 1 on the line, meaning if you print anything like:

int counter = 0;
while(counter < 10)
{
    printf(" This is my counter: %d\r", counter++);
    sleep(3);
}
printf("\n");

The line "This is my counter: (number)" will remain on the same line and keep on overwriting previus printed lines, thus only showing current counter number.
The '\r' will in no way affect the scanf() call, since it is bound to STDOUT and not STDIN which scanf() reads from.
So you need to work around stripping the '\n', but this is easy, just read it with scanf(), getline(), fscanf() or whatever and then use strlen() on it later on, like:

int length = 50;
char line[length];
printf("Enter your text, and terminate with ^D\n\n");
while (fgets(line, length, stdin) > 0)
{
    while(line[strlen(line)] == '\r' || 
          line[strlen(line)] == '\n') 
        line[strlen(line) - 1] = '\0';
    /* 
     * do what you want with line, it is holding the 
     * text written, without <cr> or '\n' in it.
     * It could be a correction to the writer ie:
     *          Your line of text: "He took ione C++ course"
     *          Shouldn't it be  : "He took one C++ course" ?? (Y/N)
     */
}

[joe_bruin]

Originally posted by redhead
The '\b' is for bell

no, '\b' is backspace, '\a' is bell.

the '\r' will return the cursor to position 1 on the line

not necessarily. on some terminals it is a newline, on some it has no effect. if stdout is directed to a file or another program, '\r' will be literally inserted into the stream.

The line "This is my counter: (number)" will remain on the same line and keep on overwriting previus printed lines, thus only showing current counter number.

hmm, doesn't work on my stdout (linux bash). perhaps an fflush() will fix it.

[toblerone]

your replies have shed light into some corners. thanks.
I wanted the prog to be fairly portable so no compiler dependency.
hmm ....




Time is that quality that stops evrything happening at the same time,
lately it dosent seem to be working.