The first mistake: You aren't separating out *reading input* from *updating the game*. You really should be.
SDL doesn't send you KEYDOWN events every frame, you just receive it once when the key first goes down... so your current code (If it weren't for other bugs working with it) would only move the character once each keypress, which is not what you want (Keypress -> Move 5 pixels. Keypress -> Move 5 pixels). What you want is (While the keypress is down, keep moving five pixels each frame*).
So you need to separate your "Update every frame" code from your "Read and react to input" code. This means, check for input first (if there is input), at the top of the "while (running)" loop, based off of the input change the internal state of the game (PlayerMovingLeft = true, PlayerMovingRight = false), and regardless of whether there is input or not, every frame react to the internal state of the game ( if(PlayerMovingLeft) {...move the player five pixels...} ).
*Actually, what you really want is, "Each frame, depending on how much time is passed, move (PER_SECOND_MOVEMENT * fractionOfASecondThatPassed), but that's just complicating your current problem, and you can always learn about that some other time.
So that's the first issue, and your code should now look like this:
bool playerMovingLeft = false;
bool playerMovingRight = false;
while (running)
{
//-------------------------------------
//Check input, and change the internal state of the game.
//-------------------------------------
SDL_PollEvent(&event);
if (event.type == SDL_QUIT)
{
SDL_Quit();
return 0;
}
else if (event.type == SDL_KEYDOWN)
{
int key_code = event.key.keysym.sym;
if (key_code == SDLK_ESCAPE)
{
SDL_Quit();
return 0;
}
if (key_code == SDLK_RIGHT) playerMovingLeft = true;
if (key_code == SDLK_LEFT) playerMovingRight = true;
}
else if (event.type == SDL_KEYUP)
{
int key_code = event.key.keysym.sym;
if (key_code == SDLK_RIGHT) playerMovingLeft = false;
if (key_code == SDLK_LEFT) playerMovingRight = false;
}
//-------------------------------------
//Update the game data, based off of the internal state of the game.
//-------------------------------------
if (playerMovingLeft == true && player.x < SCREEN_WIDTH - 5 - player.width) player.x++;
if (playerMovingRight == true && player.x > 0 + 5) player.x--;
//-------------------------------------
//Draw the game, based off of the game data.
//-------------------------------------
draw_rect(screen, player.x, player.y, player.width, player.height, 0xFF);
SDL_Flip(screen);
clear_screen(screen, 0, 0, 0);
}
The second issue, is that you aren't checking the return value of SDL_PollEvent(). It returns true if there is input, otherwise it returns false and you're not supposed to use the 'event' variable for anything.
So your entire input should be wrapped in an if(...) statement, like this:
SDL_Event event;[/left]
bool gotSomeEventsToProcess = SDL_PollEvent(&event);
if( gotSomeEventsToProcess ) //Or just: if( SDL_PollEvent(&event) )
{
if (event.type == SDL_QUIT)
{
...
}
else if (event.type == SDL_KEYDOWN)
{
...
}
else if (event.type == SDL_KEYUP)
{
...
}
}
The third issue is this: You might get more than one input event each frame! So the "if( SDL_PollEvent(&event) )" should actually be a "while( SDL_PollEvent(&event) )", otherwise if you get too many input events in one frame, it'll wait for the next frame before dealing with them, and your game will eventually start lagging where you click on something and it only processes the click many frames later.
So your actual code should look like this:
bool playerMovingLeft = false;
bool playerMovingRight = false;
while (running)
{
//-------------------------------------
//Check input, and change the internal state of the game.
//-------------------------------------
SDL_Event event;
while( SDL_PollEvent(&event) )
{
if (event.type == SDL_QUIT)
{
SDL_Quit();
return 0;
}
else if (event.type == SDL_KEYDOWN)
{
int key_code = event.key.keysym.sym;
if (key_code == SDLK_ESCAPE)
{
SDL_Quit();
return 0;
}
if (key_code == SDLK_RIGHT) playerMovingLeft = true;
if (key_code == SDLK_LEFT) playerMovingRight = true;
}
else if (event.type == SDL_KEYUP)
{
int key_code = event.key.keysym.sym;
if (key_code == SDLK_RIGHT) playerMovingLeft = false;
if (key_code == SDLK_LEFT) playerMovingRight = false;
}
}
//-------------------------------------
//Update the game data, based off of the internal state of the game.
//-------------------------------------
if (playerMovingLeft == true && player.x < SCREEN_WIDTH - 5 - player.width) player.x++;
if (playerMovingRight == true && player.x > 0 + 5) player.x--;
//-------------------------------------
//Draw the game, based off of the game data.
//-------------------------------------
draw_rect(screen, player.x, player.y, player.width, player.height, 0xFF);
SDL_Flip(screen);
clear_screen(screen, 0, 0, 0);
}This should completely fix your problem - these are common mistakes, ones which have burned me a couple of times when starting out.
You might even want to break up your "drawing" code, your "input code", and your "update" code into three separate functions for organization, but that's up to your own preferences. Good luck with your game!