Hi,
I got this funny problem. I've written this code:

printf("%c",26);

26 is the ascii code for the right arrow key, i.e., '->' in its smaller form you can say.
But on running the above line I get nothing at all on the screen .
I'm able to type the left, up and down keys with ascii values something between 24 and 27.

And guess what??, whenever I use fgetc function to read that right arrow from a data file, the return value of this function is -1 instead of 26.

Could anybody enlighten me with his guidance.

Thanks in advance.

not so funny... ALL of the ascii characters with code number under 32 are control characters... ;-)
chr 26 is the traditional End Of File character... are you working under linux?? This seems a file opened in text mode under dos/windows... as Linux doesn't make any difference between binary and text files... :-) Try to open the file in binary mode ("wb" for writing an "rb" for reading..).

Bye.

Great!!!

It worked. What a lightening fast reply it was. WOW. But I really don't know how. Please also clarify the following problems:

1) What difference does it make in the return value of fgetc function if the file is opened in ascii and in binary.

2) I thought '/0' with ascii value 0 is used to denote EOF, because it's used to denote end of arrsys and strings. Pleae elaborate on the ascii value 26 being used as EOF in files. ;-)

3) I made a blank file. And ran the following code on it:

while(!feof(file))
{
int ascii = fgetc(file);
printf("%c",ascii);
}

I expected the program not to print anything because it's a blank file. But it prints a "/" on the screen. Why? And what should I do to avoid it.

4) How do I printf the right arrow using it's ascii value 26. ;-))

Please, I don't want to be unfriendly, but I have Just ONE question... are you sure that you are using gcc under linux??.. ;-) I'm not a moderator at all anyway this is not a C forum.. this is for linux and u are making some c-only questions... I think you'd better read the C FAQ before (for example at url: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html ) And/Or buy the K&R 2nd edition... And/Or read some newsgroups' archives like the one from comp.lang.c

Please, forgive me Moderator.
For the last time (about this argument):

1) Under linux? None. Under some other os? CR (\r)+LF(\n) = LF(\n) (reading) and LF=CR+LF (writing). \x1a = means EOF (but usually u can keep on reading after this kind of EOF).

2) READ AT LEAST K&R ... C Programming Language, it DOES worth the reading. '\0' is used as a "flag" to terminate arrays (null-terminated strings are only arrays).

3) feof is set only after the first reading that reaches the end of file condition... try this kind of code:

void function()
{
FILE *fp=fopen("yourfile","rb"); /*just to be sure*/
int c;
while((c=fgetc(fp))!= EOF) {
printf("%c", c);
}
fclose(fp);
}

4) U don't .. and u have to tell WERE you want to print it.. On a text only-terminal, in a X-window application, etc. If u are using text (under linux) I suppose that you have to understand something like ncurses. BTW under c (use #include <ctype.h> if i'm not wrong) there is a function called isprint(c) which tells you what is printable and what is not printable..

Addio (for this argument).

The note on this forum says questions don't have to be directly related to Linux. It's good to try to keep the rules, though.