Shaohen’s C# Documentation

Console IO is accomplished through the standard streams Console.In, Console.Out and Console.Error

Console.In
Console.In is an instance of TextReader. Console defines two input methods: Read() and ReadLine(). Read() returns the next character read from the console. It waits until the user presses a key and then returns the result. The character is returned as an int, which must be cast to char. Read() returns -1 on error or end of stream (one-past the last character). By default, console input is line-buffered, this means you must press Enter before any character will be sent to your program.

Read() Method
The Read() method is line-buffered. When you press Enter, a carriage-return (ASCII: 13), line-feed (ASCII:10) sequence are entered into the input stream. These characters are left-spending in the input until you read them.

This is a sample program that demonstrates this effect:

using System;
using System.IO;

class ConsoleInput
 {
 public static void Main()
  {
  char ch;
  int chInt;
   
             Console.WriteLine("To terminate this program, press F6 or Contol-Z");
  Console.Write("Press any key followed by ENTER: ");
  
  while( (chInt = Console.Read()) != -1 )
   {
   ch = (char) chInt;
   Console.Write("You wrote: " );
   if(! char.IsControl(ch) )
    Console.WriteLine("\"{0}\"", ch );
   else
    Console.WriteLine( chInt );
   }
   
  }
 }

Although Console’s methods are easiest way to read from Console.In, you can call methods on the underlying TextReader.

Here’s a program that does that:

using System;

class ReadTextReader
 {
 public static void Main()
  {
  string str;
  
  Console.WriteLine("Enter some characters: ");
  str = Console.In.ReadLine();
  
  Console.WriteLine("You entered: \"{0}\"", str );
  }
 }

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