fgets falls through without taking input

Question

whenever I call this function it fails to give the use a chance to enter the string. Not sure why pretty sure my syntax is spot on. think I has something to do with the newline but I don't know how to get rid of it

 void serchName(dealers_t *ptr, int numDealers)
{
    char dealerName[NAME_LEN];
    int index;

    printf("please enter the dealer's name:");
    fgets(dealerName, sizeof(dealerName), stdin);
    system("PAUSE");

    for (index = 0; index < numDealers; index++, ptr++)
    {
        if (strcmp(dealerName, ptr->name) == 0)
        {
            printf("MATCH FOUND:%s\n%s\n%s\n%i\n%s\n", ptr->name,ptr->city,ptr->state,ptr->zip,ptr->phone);
        }
    }
}

You have something in stdin from before the call. Make sure you don't. — this, Apr 30 '14 at 20:15
This post, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3876091/c-flushing-stdin, might help. — R Sahu, Apr 30 '14 at 20:48
Fgets also reads the terminal '\n' into the buffer, so the strcmp() will fail (unless the ptr->name also has an '\n' at its end) — wildplasser, Apr 30 '14 at 21:22

chux - Reinstate Monica · Answer 1 · 2014-04-30T22:24:42.913

1

You certainly have some '\n' left-over from previous I/O activity.

It is best to use fgets() and not mixed with scanf() in the same program.

But since I can not see the other code, suggest the following to consume a left-over '\n'.

printf("please enter the dealer's name:");
int ch;
ch = fgetc(stdin);
if (ch != '\n') ungetc(ch, stdin);
if (fgets(dealerName, sizeof(dealerName), stdin) == NULL) Handle_EOForIOError();

edited Apr 30 '14 at 22:24

answered Apr 30 '14 at 22:05

chux - Reinstate Monica

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fgets falls through without taking input

1 Answers1