Platform-independent detection of arrow key press in C++ - c++

Question

In a C++ console program, I've found how to detect and arrow key on Windows, and I've found a lot of other stuff that had nothing to do with the question (despite what I thought were good search terms), but I want to know if there is a platform-independent way to detect an arrow key press. A decent second place for this would be how to detect arrow key press in unix and mac. Code fragments would be appreciated.

Answer 1

There's no cross platform way to do it because it's not defined by either C or C++ standards (though there may be libraries which abstract away the differences when compiled on different platforms).
I believe the library you are looking for on POSIX boxes is curses, but I've never used it myself -- I could be wrong.
Keep in mind that it's entirely possible the console program (i.e. gnome-terminal or konsole or xterm) has monopolized the use of those keys for other functions.

Answer 2

As Billy said, there is no standard cross-platform way to do it.
Personally I use this (game-oriented) library for all inputs, cross-platform win/linux/mac : http://sourceforge.net/projects/wgois/

Answer 3

You can do this cross-platform by using SDL2.
Example code:
#include <SDL2/SDL.h>
int main()
{
SDL_Event event;
SDL_PollEvent(&event);
if(event.type == SDL_KEYDOWN)
{
// Move centerpoint of rotation for one of the trees:
switch(event.key.keysym.sym)
{
case SDLK_UP:
// do something
break;
case SDLK_DOWN:
// do something
break;
case SDLK_LEFT:
// do something
break;
case SDLK_RIGHT:
// do something
break;
case SDLK_ESCAPE:
// do something
return 0;
default:
break;
}
}
return 0;
}