flush input buffer?

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Michael P." <baseball.mjp at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:gdd02h$1uui$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Okay, so I'm sure if flushing the input buffer is what I want, or if that 
> even makes sense, so I'll say what I'm trying to do first to see if that's 
> what I want.
> So, I made this program where you specify the number of digits in a number 
> you want to remember. Then, it ask you how many questions.
> Anyways, a number will show up. Then, you have 4 seconds to remember. 
> Then, 30 lines are skipped as my "clearing of the screen". Sleep another 
> second.
> You are then asked to type in the number you saw.
> The problem I have is that the user can just type in the number while they 
> see it, and what the typed will show up when the prompt comes up.
> What I want to do is "flush the input buffer" just before I request for 
> input so the user can no longer type in the number while they see it.
>
> -Michael P.

I'm not sure what lib or function you're using to read the input, but there 
should be some way to do an asynchronous read from the input buffer to read 
input *only* if input already exists and just sinply return nothing instead 
of waiting if no input exists. Then you could do something like this:

do
{
    inputDataToThrowAway = AsyncRead();
} while(data was actualy read);
output("Please enter your answer");
waitForInputAndReadIt();