I hate using non-standard code, and I also feel uneasy about telling someone to learn non-standard code. The reason is because this reduces the portability of code. Someone who uses non-standard code, have to learn new things every time they change their tools (i.e., OSs, compilers, IDEs, etc.).Unfortaunally some College teachers resolve to non-standard code to simplify thier lives. For some C programming instructors, use the library which is a library only available in Windows for a limited set of old compilers. This header file is used because it contains the getch function which basically causes the terminal screen to pause until the user hits the key.
The standard alternative to getch function is getchar which can be used by including file. The problem with getchar is that it does not work if you use it after a previous call of scanf. The reason is that a scanf does not remove the the end of lines in the input buffer which are a result of a user hitting the key after each request of input. For getchar to work, you need to simply ignore what ever in the input buffer after each call to the scanf function before you call getchar. While C++ comes with a nice ignore method function, C unfortunately does not. However, it is not hard to code one by your self.
Here is my implementation of a an ignore function which I use after a scanf, and this helps me call getchar to do a proper and standard pause.
// FileName: area.c
// Compute the area of a cicle
// Shows the use of ignore and pause functions.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
void ignore(int n, char delim)
// Pre : n is initialized to number of characters to ignore
// delim is initialized to the some delimiter character
// Post: The function has extracts characters from the input sequence and
// discards them, until either n characters have been extracted,
// or one compares equal to delim.
{
int count = 0;
char c;
while ((c = getchar()) != delim
&& !feof(stdin)
&& count != n)
count++;
}
void pause()
// Pre : The input stream cin is empty.
// Post: The program has displayed a one-line message
// beginning in column 1 and then paused.
// The user has pressed <ENTER>.
{
char returnChar;
printf("Press <ENTER> to continue ... ");
returnChar = getchar();
}
int main()
{
const double PI = 3.14159265359;
double r, area;
printf("Enter radius: ");
scanf("%lf", &r); ignore(80, '\n');
area = PI * pow(r,2.0);
printf("\nArea of a circle of radius %lf is %lf\n", r, PI);
pause();
return 0;
}
I hope you find this useful.
Rebelled Mind 