How to restrict the user to enter only 1 character

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

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Re: How to restrict the user to enter only 1 character by tommyw (Hermit) on Oct 29, 2001 at 23:04 UTC
How can I read a single character from a file? From the keyboard? -- Too stupid to live. Too stubborn to die.	[reply]
(Ovid) Re: How to restrict the user to enter only 1 character by Ovid (Cardinal) on Oct 29, 2001 at 23:04 UTC
Actually, I think it would be more intuitive to allow them to type 'y', 'n', 'yes', 'no', 'Yes', or 'No' and simply test the first character. `my $answer = <STDIN>; my $first_char = substr $answer, 0, 1; if ( lc $first_char eq 'y' ) { # they answered 'yes' } else { # they answered something else }` [download] Cheers, Ovid Join the Perlmonks Setiathome Group or just click on the the link and check out our stats.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: (Ovid) Re: How to restrict the user to enter only 1 character by dmmiller2k (Chaplain) on Oct 30, 2001 at 03:05 UTC
Yes, but that would require also pressing Return, which, if I am reading the question right, may not be what the original poster wanted. (Actually, I am projecting what I meant, when I myself--oh so many moons ago--asked pretty much the same thing on some forum or another.) dmm You can give a man a fish and feed him for a day ... Or, you can teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime	[reply]
Re: How to restrict the user to enter only 1 character by jlongino (Parson) on Oct 29, 2001 at 23:03 UTC
You can probably find what you need by doing a search on: `Term::ReadKey` --Jim	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How to restrict the user to enter only 1 character by broquaint (Abbot) on Oct 29, 2001 at 23:35 UTC
A function you may want to check out is getc() which reads in the next character from the given `filehandle`, or `STDIN` if that isn't specified - `my $char = getc(); print "you entered $char\n";` [download] Admittedly this doesn't deliver you a single character at a time, but the docs explain how you can go about achieving that. HTH broquaint	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How to restrict the user to enter only 1 character by Rich36 (Chaplain) on Oct 29, 2001 at 23:47 UTC
Mostly the same info, but a different thread from when I asked the same question.... stdin problem... Rich36 There's more than one way to screw it up...	[reply]