Console Input Question

I'm scratching my head right now, because I can't find an equivalent to the
_getch() c run time library function. Both Console.Read() and
Console.ReadLine() require carriage returns before they return. I want to
read a single character entry without the user hiting return. Is there no
such facility within the .NET framework to do this?

No, there isn't, but you can allways use P/Invoke to switch the console from line mode to character mode.

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

public class Con {
const int STD_INPUT_HANDLE = -10;
const int ENABLE_LINE_INPUT = 0x0002;
const int ENABLE_ECHO_INPUT = 0x0004;
[DllImport("kernel32")]
public static extern IntPtr GetStdHandle( int nStdHandle);
[DllImport("kernel32")]
public static extern bool GetConsoleMode( IntPtr hConsoleHandle, ref int pmode);
[DllImport("kernel32")]
public static extern bool SetConsoleMode( IntPtr hConsoleHandle, int mode);
public static void EnableCharMode() {
IntPtr hConsole;
int mode= 0;
hConsole = GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE);
GetConsoleMode(hConsole, ref mode);

// must turn off echo mode when character input
mode &= ~ (ENABLE_LINE_INPUT | ENABLE_ECHO_INPUT);
SetConsoleMode(hConsole, mode)
}

public static void EnableLineMode() {
IntPtr hConsole;
int mode=0;
hConsole = GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE);
GetConsoleMode(hConsole, ref mode);
mode |= (ENABLE_LINE_INPUT | ENABLE_ECHO_INPUT);
SetConsoleMode(hConsole, mode)
}

Create an instance of the class and call EnableCharMode when single char input is required, dont forget to reset the console to
linemode before terminating the program.

Willy.
"Paul Giller" <Pa...@InnerCOM.co.uk> wrote in message news:OT0bNimRBHA.1544@tkmsftngp05...

"Willy Denoyette" <willy.d...@pandora.be> wrote in message
news:#dVRo$mRBHA.2132@tkmsftngp05...

Cool; you can also create a Managed C++ class with a single method that
calls _getch() for you. It's probably also useful to have _kbhit() in there:

#using <mscorlib.dll>
#include <conio.h>
namespace Utils
{
public __gc class Keyboard
{
public:
static System::Int32 GetKey()
{
if (_kbhit())
return _getch();
else
return -1;
}
};
}

Compile with:

cl /clr /LD filename.cpp

Peter

--
Peter Torr -- pt...@microsoft.com -- JScript .NET / VSA Runtime
Waiting for the Vengabus? http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm
Please post all questions to the group. Thanks.