CMD Prompt C++: Limiting literals entered on screen - c++

Question

I hope the question isn't to ambiguous.
when I ask:
int main()
{
string name = {""};
cout << "Please enter a name: " << endl;
getline(cin, name);
//user enters 12 characters stop displaying next literal keypresses.
enter code here
}
I would like to be able to limit the amount of times the user can enter a char on screen. Example, the screen stops displaying characters after length 12?
If so what would be the library and command line for doing something like this?
Wanting to this as, I have a ascii art drawn on the CMD, and when I cout the statement at x,y anything over 12 characters long inputed draws over the ascii art.
I hope this makes sense :'{ Thank you!

Answer 1

By default the console is in cooked mode (canonical mode, line mode, ...). This means
that the console driver is buffering data before it hands it to your application
characters will be automatically echoed back to the console by the console driver
Normally, this means that your program only ever gets hold of the input after a line ends, i.e. when enter is pressed. Because of the auto-echo, those character are then already on screen.
Both settings can be changed independently, however the mechanism is --unfortunately-- an OS-specific call:
For Window it's SetConsoleMode():
HANDLE h_stdin = GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE);
DWORD mode = 0;
// get chars immediately
GetConsoleMode(hStdin, &mode);
SetConsoleMode(hStdin, mode & ~ENABLE_LINE_INPUT));
// display input echo, set after 12th char.
GetConsoleMode(hStdin, &mode);
SetConsoleMode(hStdin, mode & ~ENABLE_ECHO_INPUT));
As noted by yourself, Windows still provides conio.h including a non-echoing _getch() (with underscore, nowadays). You can always use that and manually echo the characters. _getch() simply wraps the console line mode on/off, echo on/off switch into a function.
Edit: There is meant to be an example on the use of _getch(), here. I'm a little to busy to get it done properly, I refrained from posting potentially buggy code.
Under *nix you will most likely want to use curses/termcap/terminfo. If you want a leaner approach, the low level routines are documented in termios/tty_ioctl:
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <termios.h>
struct termios tcattr;
// enable non-canonical mode, get raw chars as they are generated
tcgetattr(STDIN_FILENO, &tcattr);
tcattr.c_lflag &= ~ICANON;
tcsetattr(STDIN_FILENO, TCSAFLUSH, &tcattr);
// disable echo
tcgetattr(STDIN_FILENO, &tcattr);
tcattr.c_lflag &= ~ECHO;
tcsetattr(STDIN_FILENO, TCSAFLUSH, &tcattr);

Answer 2

You can use scanf("%c",&character) on a loop from 1 to 12 and append them to a pre-allocated buffer.

Answer 3

As in my comments, I mentioned a method I figured out using _getch(); and
displaying each char manually.
simplified version:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <conio.h>
using namespace std;
string name = "";
int main()
{
char temp;
cout << "Enter a string: ";
for (int i = 0; i < 12; i++) { //Replace 12 with character limit you want
temp = _getch();
name += temp;
cout << temp;
}
system("PAUSE");
}
This lets you cout each key-press as its pressed,
while concatenating each character pressed to a string called name.
Then later on in what ever program you use this in, you can display the full name as a single string type.