Pause console

From cpwiki

When working with console applications, you may encounter the problem that the console window (sometimes referred to as a "DOS" window or terminal) in which your program displays output closes before the output can be viewed. There are several ways around this problem. Options include:

• Run the program from the command prompt. Since you open the console window yourself it will not close when your application finishes.
• Use an Integrated Development Environment which keeps the console open for you. Known IDEs that has this functionality are:
  • Microsoft Visual Studio (when using Execute to run the program)
  • Code::Blocks
• Using a debugger and setting a breakpoint at the closing } for the main function. Microsoft Visual Studio incorporates a very easy-to-use debugger that can do this.
• Use getchar() or other input functions to keep the console open until the user presses enter. To eat up any characters along with the newline, a favourite is the following (for C):

int c;
while((c = getchar()) != '\n' && c != EOF);

If there is any input in the input stream, for example a newline from scanf(), you will need to put that code twice, e.g.:

int c;
while((c = getchar()) != '\n' && c != EOF);
while((c = getchar()) != '\n' && c != EOF);

• And for C++, one possibility is:

#include <iostream>
#include <ios>
#include <limits>
// ...
std::cin.ignore(std::numeric_limits<std::streamsize>::max(), '\n');
std::cin.get();

• Use a non-standard call to getch() or system("PAUSE") or similar -- this has the advantage that you can press any key, not just enter, to close the window, but is inherently unportable (thus we do not recommend this approach).