text input w/o showing the input (akin to password prompts)

[practicesmagic]

I'm wondering how to get input from the keyboard without echoing the characters to screen ...

Help?

So you know, I'm fairly new at programming

Thanks,
Nikolai

 

[Pappy1942]

Hi,
If you are using an old compiler one way is to use getch().

char inchar = 0;
char password[20]={0} ;


for(x = 0; x < 19 &amp;&amp; inchar != 13 ; ++x)
{
inchar = getch();
if(inchar != 13) // 13 is RETURN
password[x] = inchar;
}

I think Borland compilers will also work. If you have there free compiler read the note in conio.h about getch().
If you have M$ VC++6 then I don't think this will work.

Pappy

 

[practicesmagic]

This is what I threw together using your suggestion. I'm using VC++ 5 I think ... I added code to deal with backspaces and output asterisks for characters...


#include <conio.h>
#include <iostream.h>

void getpasswd()
{
char inchar = 0;
char password[20]={0} ;

// Necessary to make sure whatever cout outputs is actually
// printed to the screen before getch() acts
cout.flush();

for (int x = 0; x < 19 &amp;&amp; inchar != 13 ; ++x)
{
inchar = getch();
if(inchar != 13) // 13 is RETURN
{
password[x] = inchar;
if (inchar == 8)
{
cout << &quot;\b \b&quot;;
x--;
}
else
cout.put('*');
cout.flush();
}
}

cout << &quot;\nThe password is \&quot;&quot; << password << &quot;\&quot;&quot; << endl;
}

int main() {
cout << &quot;Enter in a password (less than 19 characters) : &quot;;

getpasswd();

cout << &quot;\nProgram complete\n&quot;;

return 0;
}