Strange C Problem

[Andrew Koenig]

In article <13812 at paris.ics.uci.edu>, bvickers at bonnie.ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers) writes:

>   current = first_msg;
>   while (current != NULL) {
>     printf("%s\n",current->string);
>     printf("&");
>     temp = current;
>     current = current -> next;
>     free (temp);
>   }
>   first_msg = NULL;
>   last_msg  = NULL;
> }

> Now, this function is supposed to output all the messages that are on
> the linked list from first to last.  But something strange happens.
> After the function has output its last message, it fails to continue
> on to the next line (printf("&")).  The ampersand isn't output until
> the next call to output_msgs().  

I wouldn't be surprised to find that your terminal output
is line-buffered.  Try this:

  current = first_msg;
  while (current != NULL) {
    printf("%s\n",current->string);
    printf("&");
    fflush(stdout);		/* insert this line */
    temp = current;
    current = current -> next;
    free (temp);
  }
  first_msg = NULL;
  last_msg  = NULL;
}

-- 
				--Andrew Koenig
				  ark at europa.att.com