How does the System.in.read() works?

Question

Hi!I'm trying to read some chars from the console.So here is my code of reading the two chars:
       char ch1='\u0000';
       char ch2='\u0000';
       System.out.print("Enter the first char:");
       ch1=(char)System.in.read();
       System.in.read();
       System.out.print("Enter the second char:");
       ch2=(char)System.in.read();
       System.out.println("You have typed the following letters:"+ch1+" , "+ch2);My problem is that if I don't add the System.in.read(); line after reading the first char i wont be able to read the second.But I saw on a code on the net that they put it.So I've put it too but don't understand what it does.I mean the System.in.read(); function reads until it gets -1.But in my case it's gonna get '\n'.So how does this function works?Thank you!
Edited by: jcoder86 on Oct 9, 2009 5:36 AM

Answer 1

jcoder86 wrote:
Hi!I'm trying to read some chars from the console.So here is my code of reading the two chars:
char ch1='\u0000';
char ch2='\u0000';
System.out.print("Enter the first char:");
ch1=(char)System.in.read();
System.in.read();
System.out.print("Enter the second char:");
ch2=(char)System.in.read();
System.out.println("You have typed the following letters:"+ch1+" , "+ch2);My problem is that if I don't add the System.in.read(); line after reading the first char i wont be able to read the second.But I saw on a code on the net that they put it.So I've put it too but don't understand what it does.I mean the System.in.read(); function reads until it gets -1.But in my case it's gonna get '\n'.So how does this function works?Thank you!
Edited by: jcoder86 on Oct 9, 2009 5:36 AMThat's wrong. System.in.read() reads a byte from the stream. -1 is returned if the end of stream has been reached (that usually doesn't happen if you read from stdin)
The second System.in.read() is there to throw away the line terminator.