System("PAUSE") equivalent unix

killzone · #1 29-Dec-2006, 11:29

is there a system("PAUSE") equivalent in UNIX

davekw7x · #2 29-Dec-2006, 11:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by killzone

is there a system("PAUSE") equivalent in UNIX

Not unless you have an executable program named "PAUSE" on your system that does the same thing as the built-in "PAUSE" windows command. See footnote.

I hardly ever need something like system("PAUSE") for my Windows applications or my Linux applications, but I would probably change the functionality slightly so that I could use standard library functions on both and do something like this:

CPP / C++ / C Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    int i;

    for (i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
        printf("i = %d\n", i);
        printf("Press 'Enter' to continue: ... ");
        while ( getchar() != '\n')
            ;
    }
    printf("\n\n");
    printf("Ttttthat's all, folks\n");
    printf("Press 'Enter' to exit the program (ironic, isn't it?) ...");
    while (getchar() != '\n')
        ;
    printf("\n\n");
    printf("Ttttthat's really all!\n");
    return 0;
}

Works for me on Windows and on Linux with no changes to the source code.

Code:

i = 0
Press 'Enter' to continue: ...
i = 1
Press 'Enter' to continue: ...
i = 2
Press 'Enter' to continue: ...


Ttttthat's all, folks
Press 'Enter' to exit the program (ironic, isn't it?) ...


Ttttthat's really all!

Note that this is a valid C program and also a valid C++ program, but C++ programmers would probably use cout<< instead of printf, and cin.get() instead of getchar().

Regards,

Dave

Footnote: The Windows built-in command "PAUSE" is kind of like printing the message and then executing getch() and throwing away the char. I have never seen a Linux system with a "PAUSE" system command, but it is undoubtedly possible to implement such a thing. (I have also never seen a C/C++ compiler distribution that has getch(), unless you use ncurses, which is typically available on Linux systems. Since ncurses is not necessarily included with Linux distributions, and is often not available with Windows C compilers, I usually don't use ncurses unless I really, really need some special screen functionality but don't need a full-fledged GUI program.

Since my goal is portability across platforms, I (usually) avoid using system commands (or C library functions) for which I am not prepared to supply the source code so that the application can be re-compiled for virtually any platform.

WaltP · #3 02-Jan-2007, 01:32

Also, check this info to see why you don't want to use system("PAUSE") in the first place -- and what to replace it with...

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System("PAUSE") equivalent unix

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Re: System("PAUSE") equivalent unix