C prompt ordering for reading string with getchar() [duplicate] - c

Question

This question already has answers here:
Why is getchar() reading '\n' after a printf statement?
(3 answers)
Closed 9 years ago.
This is a newbie question. I am new to C programming. I have the following code which does not prompt for 'Name' Onece the 'Age' is entered, it bypass the 'Name section.
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
char name[30],ch;
int age;
printf("Enter age : ");
scanf("%d", &age);
int i=0;
printf("Enter name: ");
while((ch = getchar())!='\n')
{
name[i]=ch;
i++;
}
name[i]='\0';
printf("Name: %s\n",name);
printf("Age : %d\n", age);
return 0;
}
After reading first prompt it bypass the second prompt which is using getchar() function. But if I change the order of prompt to ask for 'Name' first and then 'Age' it works fine.
The working code.
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
char name[30],ch;
int age;
int i=0;
printf("Enter name: ");
while((ch = getchar())!='\n')
{
name[i]=ch;
i++;
}
name[i]='\0';
printf("Enter age : ");
scanf("%d", &age);
printf("Name: %s\n",name);
printf("Age : %d\n", age);
return 0;
}
My coding IDE is CodeBlock and my compiler is GNU C Compiler (mingw32-gcc.exe)
Please help me to breakthrough.

Answer 1

A few improvements/advices to the code in the question:
the type of the return value of getchar() is int, so the type of ch also should be int
you could (and should, I believe) use format %s to read the name, this is easier and the leading white spaces in the input stream would not be a problem
the user of the code could give a name which contains more than 30 characters, and this input could crash your program, so you should protect your code for this possibility. You have two options:
a. use format '%29s" to read the name
b. change the definition of name to char *name, read it by scanf("%ms", &name);, and call free(name); after you do not need it anymore
Here is an example, in which the name can be very long and can include spaces:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
char *name;
int age;
printf("Enter name: ");
scanf("%m[^\n]", &name);
printf("Enter age: ");
scanf("%d", &age);
printf("Name: %s\n", name);
printf("Age : %d\n", age);
free(name);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
And here is a run of it:
$ ./a.out
Enter name: a very looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong name
Enter age: 12
Name: a very looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong name
Age : 12

Answer 2

In first code the \n character left behind by the scanf is read by getchar. This makes the condition (ch = getchar())!='\n' in while loop false and the loop body never get executed.
You need to consume that \n character which comes up to the buffer along with the age you entered on pressing Enter key.
Putting the statement
while(getchar()!='\n');
after the scanf will consume all of the newline characters.
Your second code is working fine because %d skips white-space characters unlike %c specifiers.