C in a Nutshell

Name

getchar

Synopsis

Reads a character from the standard input stream

#include <stdio.h>
intgetchar( void );

The function call getchar() is equivalent to getc(stdin). Like getc(), getchar() may be implemented as a macro. As it has no arguments, however, unforeseen side effects are unlikely.

getchar() returns the character read. A return value of EOF indicates an error or an attempt to read past the end of the input stream. In these cases the function sets the error or end-of-file flag for stdin as appropriate.

Example

char file_name[256};
int answer;

/* ... */

fprintf( stderr, "Are you sure you want to replace the file \"%s\"?\n",
         file_name );
answer = tolower(getchar());
if ( answer != 'y' )
  exit( -1 );

See Also

fgetc(), fputc(), getch(), putc(), putchar(); the C99 functions to read and write wide characters: getwc(), fgetwc(), getwchar(), putwc(), fputwc(), and putwchar(), ungetc(), ungetwc()