C getchar() hangman game - c

Question

I was given a homework assignment which tasked us with creating a simple hangman game. Below is the code I have. I am currently trying to use if else with getchar() to ask the user to input a lowercase letter and see if it matches one of the letters in the word they are supposed to guess. From my very limited experience the code I have should work and when I step through the program it appears as if it should run properly, but when I actually run the program it seems to skip over the second getchar(). Anyone have any suggestions or help?
#include "stdio.h"
#include "math.h"
int main(void) {
int(a);
int(b);
float(x);
float(c);
float(e);
int word[4] = {116, 101, 115, 116};
int guess[4];
c == 0;
a == 0;
b == 0;
printf("Welcome to Hangman\n");
printf("Input a word--one lower case letter at a time\n");
printf("Enter Guess: ");
x = getchar();
if (x > 122) {
printf(" Error, character must be a lowercase letter");
} else
if (x < 97) {
printf(" Error, character must be a lowercase letter");
} else
if (x == 116) {
printf("t is correct\n");
printf("%d", word[0]);
printf(" _");
printf(" _");
printf(" %d ", word[3]);
e = getchar();
if (e == 101) {
printf("e is correct\n");
printf("%d", word[0]);
printf(" %d", word[1]);
printf(" _");
printf(" %d ", word[3]);
} else
if (e == 115) {
printf("s is correct\n");
printf("%d", word[0]);
printf(" _");
printf(" %d", word[2]);
printf(" %d", word[0]);
} else {
printf(" You guessed wrong");
}
} else
if (x == 101) {
printf("e is correct\n");
printf("_");
printf(" %d", word[1]);
printf(" _");
printf(" _ ");
} else
if (x == 115) {
printf("s is correct\n");
printf("_");
printf(" _");
printf(" %d", word[2]);
printf(" _ ");
} else {
printf(" You guessed wrong");
}
}

Answer 1

When you input a character that you want getchar to read, you end it with the Enter key right? That Enter key will also be put into the input buffer of stdin (which is what getchar reads from) as a newline, '\n'.
That means for each input you give, you actually input two characters.
You need to skip that newline. This can easily be done by just adding a second getchar after the first, like for example
x = getchar();
getchar(); // Read the newline from the Enter key

Answer 2

There is already a good answer, but to clarify the
problem a little bit more, here is a simple piece of code.
The function get_character will return the first entered character
and consume all following characters until the next '\n'.
It is not going to block if one character is EOF.
#include<stdio.h>
int get_character(void);
int main(void)
{
printf("character > ");
int c = get_character();
while(c != EOF && c != 'q')
{
printf("You entered %c\n", c);
printf("character > ");
c = get_character();
}
}
int get_character(void)
{
int c = getchar(), next_c;
if(c == EOF)
{
return EOF;
}
next_c = getchar(); // consume all \n
while(next_c != '\n' && next_c != EOF)
{
fprintf(stderr, "WARNING: consumed non-newline character: 0x%x\n", next_c);
next_c = getchar();
}
return c;
}
By the way: You are able to solve the hangman way faster:
int get_character(void);
#define MAX_TRIALS 3
#define WORD_LEN 4
int main(void)
{
char word[WORD_LEN + 1] = "test";
char correct[WORD_LEN] = {0, 0, 0, 0};
int trials = 0;
while(1)
{
if(trials > MAX_TRIALS)
{
printf("You failed. The word was: %s\n", word);
return 0;
}
printf("character > ");
int c = get_character();
if(c == EOF)
{
printf("bye\n");
return 0;
}
int i, this_char_correct = 0;
for(i = 0; i < WORD_LEN; i++)
{
if(c == word[i])
{
correct[i] = 1;
this_char_correct = 1;
}
if(correct[i])
{
printf("%c", word[i]);
}
else
{
printf("_");
}
}
if(!this_char_correct)
{
trials++;
}
int word_done = 1;
for(i = 0; i < WORD_LEN; i++)
{
word_done &= correct[i];
}
if(! word_done)
{
printf("\nYou have %d trials left\n", WORD_LEN - trials);
}
else
{
printf("\nYou got it.\n");
return 0;
}
}
}
This is just a piece of proof-of-concept code there might be way more elegant ways to solve this.