How can one flush input stream in C?

Solution 1:

fflush(stdin) is undefined behaviour^(a). Instead, make scanf "eat" the newline:

scanf("%s %d %f\n", e.name, &e.age, &e.bs);

Everyone else makes a good point about scanf being a bad choice. Instead, you should use fgets and sscanf:

const unsigned int BUF_SIZE = 1024;
char buf[BUF_SIZE];
fgets(buf, BUF_SIZE, stdin);
sscanf(buf, "%s %d %f", e.name, &e.age, &e.bs);

^(a) See, for example, C11 7.21.5.2 The fflush function:

int fflush(FILE *stream) - If stream points to an output stream or an update stream in which the most recent operation was not input, the fflush function causes any unwritten data for that stream to be delivered to the host environment to be written to the file; otherwise, the behavior is undefined.

Solution 2:

Update: You need to add another getchar() at the end of your loop to consume the '\n' that follows the Y/N. I don't think this is the best way to go, but it will make your code work as it stands now.

while(another=='y') {
    printf("\nEnter name,age and basic salary : ");
    fgets(buf, BUF_SIZE, stdin);
    sscanf(buf, "%s %d %f", e.name, &e.age, &e.bs);
    fwrite(&e,sizeof(e),1,fp);
    printf("Add another record (Y/N)");
    another=getchar();
    getchar();
}

I would suggest reading the data you want to parse (up to and including the '\n') into a buffer and then parse it out using sscanf(). This way you consume the newline and you can perform other sanity checks on the data.

Solution 3:

Use this instead of getchar():

   char another[BUF_SIZE] = "y";
   while( 'y' == another[0] )
   {
        printf( "\nEnter name,age and basic salary : " );
        fgets( buf, BUF_SIZE, stdin );
        sscanf( buf, "%s %d %f", e.name, &e.age, &e.bs );
        fwrite( &e, sizeof(e) , 1, fp );
        printf( "Add another record (Y/N)" );
        fgets( another, BUF_SIZE, stdin );
    }

Solution 4:

It's not a good practice to use fflush( stdin ) as it has undefined behavior. Generally, functions like scanf() leaves trailing newlines in stdin. So, it is better to use functions that are "cleaner" than scanf(). You can replace your scanf() with a combination of fgets() and sscanf() and you can do away with fflush( stdin ).

Solution 5:

I would recommend the fgets()+sscanf() approach that a lot of other people have suggested. You could also use scanf("%*c"); before the call to getchar(). That will essentially eat a character.