Scanf skips every other while loop in C

Question

I\'m trying to develop a simple text-based hangman game, and the main game loop starts with a prompt to enter a guess at each letter, then goes on to check if the letter is

Answer 1

Break the problem up into smaller parts:

int main(void) {
    char val;
    while (1) {
        printf("enter val: ");
        scanf("%c", &val);
        printf("got: %d\n", val);
    }
}

The output here is:

enter val: g
got: 103
enter val: got: 10

Why would scanf give you another '10' in there?

Since we printed the ASCII number for our value, '10' in ASCII is "enter" so scanf must also grab the "enter" key as a character.

Sure enough, looking at your scanf string, you are asking for a single character each time through your loop. Control characters are also considered characters, and will be picked up. For example, you can press "esc" then "enter" in the above loop and get:

enter val: ^[
got: 27
enter val: got: 10