LinuxQuestions.org - EOF counter in C problem

Hello there,

I am reading a book about C "The C programming language" and I am implementing an example code to count the input characters.

Code:

#include <stdio.h>



/* count characters in input; 1st version */

main()

{

    long nc;

    nc = 0;

    while (getchar() != EOF)

      ++nc;



  printf("%ld\n", nc);

}

The problem is that I don't know how to terminate this program and get the result. I know that the value of EOF = -1, but giving -1 as the input the program takes it as another input and continues to prompt me for the next input.

Any idea how I can terminate this program??

Thanks in advance.