C scanf() and fgets() problem

Question

I'm trying to read user input and store it as a string including the whitespace. I did a search for a solution and was pointed to fgets() or scanf(%[^\n], str). But both these solutions give me an error.

This is what I have:

//MAX_CHARACTERS is set to 30

 scanf("%d", &input);
 if (input == 1){
        int pr;
        char na[MAX_CHARACTERS+1];
        printf("\nEnter the name: ");
        scanf("%[^\t\n]", &na);
        while (strlen(na)>MAX_CHARACTERS){
            printf("\nName is too long, enter new name: ");
            scanf("%[^\t\n]", &na);
        }// end na check
        printf("\nEnter priority: ");
        scanf("%d", &pr);
        while (pr>MAX_PRIORITY || pr <MIN_PRIORITY){
            printf("\nBad priority, enter new priority (0-100): ");
            scanf("%d", &pr);
        }//end pr check

It works fine if I use %s in all instances of %[^\t\n] but when I use %[^\t\n] or

fgets(na, 30, stdin), it skips the first scanf for name and goes straight to "Enter priority: ". Then when I print, I have a blank name with whatever priority I entered.

EDIT: Sorry, the missing quotes on the first scanf is a typo. Not a cause of the problem. I typed in '1' for the first scanf("%d", input).

FIXED IT

Since it won't let me post an answer yet,

Someone figured it out. Incase anyone's still interested, the problem was the first scanf().

scanf("%d", &input);

It is leaving a \n in the buffer. The second one is taking the \n and reading it as an input so it gets skipped.

SOLUTION:

Putting a

fflush(stdin); //right after the if statement seems to have fixed the issue. 

Thanks for everyone's help.

Answer 1

This is the problem with using scanf() to take in user input, it's not made to handle strings or any bad inputs. scanf() is meant to read formatted input (e.g., files with a strict and specific format). When taking in input from the user, input could be malformed and causes problems. You should use fgets() to read the input and parse it yourself.

To answer why the second scanf() call gets skipped, it's because the first call only consumes the digits that gets inputted. However the newline from pressing Enter remains in the input buffer and is in turn, the input of the second call. To fix this, you'd want to remove that newline character from the input buffers. The safest way to do that would be to use getchar() until the newline character is read, then continue with your program. And avoid using the fflush(stdin) pattern, that's not safe and can cause more problems than it's worth.

Here's a simple function you can use to read characters until a newline is read:

void clear_newlines(void)
{
    int c;
    do
    {
        c = getchar();
    } while (c != '\n' && c != EOF);
}

Call this after any call to scanf() that you're processing non-string data.