Hi,

I am programming my first game framework in c++ and I have a console where I print debug info. Now I want to be able to introduce commands. The problem is that I dont know how to get the console input without pausing the main game loop. How can I do it? Do I need to separate it in another thread?

Thanks.

#include <sys/time.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>

bool is_there_input() {
  struct timeval tv = {0l, 0l};
  fd_set rfds;
  FD_ZERO(&rfds);
  FD_SET(0, &rfds);

  return select(1, &rfds, 0, 0, &tv);
}

Hi,

I am programming my first game framework in c++ and I have a console where I print debug info. Now I want to be able to introduce commands. The problem is that I dont know how to get the console input without pausing the main game loop. How can I do it? Do I need to separate it in another thread?

Thanks.

From reading this, I can't tell if you're talking about outputting to the OS's console, or a shell, or if you have a custom graphical console within the application's window.

If the former, as mentioned, you could try kbhit() in Windows, or using termio in *nix, or something else like that.

If the latter, you could poll for input if you determine that the console has focus, and filter out the key presses that you want into a line buffer, before submitting it for parsing.

Neither of these solutions require a separate thread, but if you really, really want to, you can spend a thread on it.