I know there are many similar questions, but I could not find answers clear enough.
I am writing something that resembles a little primitive shell in C. I am constantly querying the user to enter commands, which I process. To read a line, I use fgets(). It works really nice (I have to remove the \n every time though), but if I want to move the cursor when typing something, the raw key codes get put into the console instead. Not only can I not use the up and down arrow keys to get previous commands, I am also unable to correct any typos without deleting everything with backspace until the typo and then typing stuff back again.
The same happens when using scanf(), so fgets() is not the culprit. Interestingly enough, it works just fine when I'm trying on Windows. Also, as I said, for example the backspace key actually deletes characters…
I know I could use ncurses, but I would rather find another elegant solution…
You need a library like readline.
Don’t get entangled in ‘portable code.’
You can use Conditional Inclusion to stay compatible on different platforms.