Q51322: BASIC INPUT and LINE INPUT Always Turn on Cursor during Input

Article: Q51322
Product(s): See article
Version(s): 1.00 1.01 1.02 2.00 2.01 3.00 4.00 4.00b 4.50
Operating System(s): MS-DOS
Keyword(s): ENDUSER | SR# S890919-120 B_BasicCom B_GWBasicI | mspl13_basic
Last Modified: 19-DEC-1989

The INPUT and LINE INPUT statements always turn on the cursor when
they are executed. Turning off the cursor beforehand with the LOCATE
statement will not turn off the INPUT or LINE INPUT cursor. If the
LOCATE statement turned off the cursor before the INPUT or LINE INPUT
statement, the cursor will be off after input is completed. But
during execution of INPUT or LINE INPUT, the cursor remains on.

This information applies to Microsoft QuickBASIC Versions 1.00, 1.01,
1.02, 2.00, 2.01, 3.00, 4.00, 4.00b, and 4.50 for MS-DOS, Microsoft
BASIC Compiler Versions 6.00, and 6.00b for MS-DOS and MS OS/2,
Microsoft BASIC PDS Version 7.00 for MS-DOS and MS OS/2, and to
Microsoft GW-BASIC Interpreter Versions 3.20, 3.22, and 3.23 for
MS-DOS.

If you want a form of input that has no automatic cursor, you can
invoke the LOCATE statement to turn off the cursor and use the INKEY$
function in a loop to accept input character by character. For an
example of using INKEY$ to input a fixed number of characters in a
loop, query on the following words:

   buffered and INKEY$ and keyboard and INPUT and LOCATE

The following code example demonstrates the visibility of the cursor
when using the INPUT statement. The results are the same for the LINE
INPUT statement.

Code Example
------------

LOCATE 1,1,0         'Turn cursor off
INPUT a$             'Cursor will come back on
PRINT a$             'Cursor will be off again
while inkey$="" : wend   ' Wait for any keystroke.

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