Equivalent function to C's “_getch()” in Java?

Question

I use Google Wave, and I want to emulate the ability to send messages before you actually hit the enter key.

Is there a Java equivalent to the C function _getch()?

Answer 1

You could use the JLine library's ConsoleReader.readVirtualKey() method. See http://jline.sourceforge.net/apidocs/jline/ConsoleReader.html#readVirtualKey().

If you don't want to use a 3rd party library, and if you are on Mac OS X or UNIX, you can just take advantage of the same trick that JLine uses to be able to read individual characters: just execute the command "stty -icanon min 1" before running your program, and then System.in will no longer be line buffered and you can get an individual character using System.in.read(). Unfortunately, this trick doesn't work on Windows, so you would need to use a native library to help (or just use JLine).