C# 0 The Complete Reference

PART I

C h a p t e r   1 4 :  

U s i n g   I / O  

371

PART IPART I

As the output confirms, each time a key is pressed, 

ReadKey( )

 immediately returns the 

keypress. As explained, this differs from 

Read( )

 and 

ReadLine( )

, which use line-buffered 

input. Therefore, if you want to achieve interactive responses from the keyboard, use 

ReadKey( )

.

Writing Console Output

Console.Out

 and 

Console.Error

 are objects of type 

TextWriter

. Console output is most easily 

accomplished with 

Write( )

 and 

WriteLine( )

, with which you are already familiar. Versions 

of these methods exist that output for each of the built-in types. 

Console

 defines its own 

versions of 

Write( )

 and 

WriteLine( )

 so they can be called directly on 

Console

, as you have 

been doing throughout this book. However, you can invoke these (and other) methods on 

the

TextWriter

 that underlies 

Console.Out

 and 

Console.Error

 if you choose.

Here is a program that demonstrates writing to