Thread: SBBBS::Software for Big Bang Book Store

Hi,



Problem Statement:

A book store maintains the inventory of books that are being sold at the shop. The list includes details such as author, title, price, and stock position. Whenever a customer wants a book, the sales person inputs the title and author and the system searches the list and displays whether its available or not.

Design a system using a class called books with suitable member functions and constructors. Use new operator in constructors to allocate memory space required.

The salesman should be able to add new books to the database.

Code:

Code:

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int bookcount;
books *pointer;
void menu(void);

class books
{
	private:
	
	string title;
	string author;
	float price;
	int stock;
	
	
	public:
	
	books(string ltitle,string lauthor,float lprice,int lstock)
	{
		title=ltitle;
		author=lauthor;
		price=lprice;
		stock=lstock;
	}
	
	search(string ltitle)
	{
		
		//Search Algorithm goes here
	    if(found)
	    {
	    	sell(ltitle);
	    }
	    else
	    {
	    	cout<<"Book not found";
	    }  
	
	}
	
	sell(string ltitle)
	{
		cout<<"\nBook name:"<<ltitle;
		cout<<"\nPrice:"<<price;
		cout<<"\nStock:"<<stock;
		cout<<"\nEnter no. of copies to buy";
		int num;
		cin>>num;
		if(num<=stock)
		{
			stock-=num;
			cout<<"\nSold!";
		}
		else
		{
			cout<<"\nnot available";
		}
	}
	

};

int main()
{
	
	int choice=1;
	string ltitle;
	string lauthor;
	float lprice;
	int lstock;
	
	menu();
	while(choice!=3)
	{
			    
	    cout<<"\nEnter Your choice:";
	    cin>>choice;
	    if(choice==1)
	      {
	      	cout<<"\nEnter name of the book:";
	      	cin>>ltitle;
	      	search(ltitle);
	      }
	    
	    if(choice==2)
	    {
	    	cout<<"\nEnter name of book:";
	    	cin>>ltitle;
	    	cout<<"\nAuthor";
	    	cin>>lauthor;
	    	cout<<"\nPrice:";
	    	cin>>lprice;
	    	cout<<"\nStock:";
	    	cin>>lstock;
	    	pointer=new books(string ltitle,string lauthor,float lprice,int lstock);
	    }
		menu();
	}
}


void menu(void)
{
	cout<<endl<<"\t\t\tWelcome to Big Bang Book Store"<<endl;
	cout<<"1) Buy a Book"<<endl;
	cout<<"2)Add a book to database"<<endl;
	cout<<"3)Exit"<<endl;
}

I am having trouble with making the search algorithm........and perhaps you all will find 50 other flaws in it.

Thanks for the help.

Code:

books *pointer;

At this point the compiler doesn't know what books is. Hence all the following errors concerning pointer. This should come after the definition of class books or books needs to be forward declared.

Code:

if(!strcmp((*lpointer).title,ltitle)) //cannot convert string* to const char*

string is a C++ standard class and not a C-style char array. Therefore you don't use standard C style string manipulation functions (things starting with str...) to work with it. To compare string instances, use comparison operators (==, !=, < etc).

Code:

search(ltitle); //no matching function call

search is a member function of books, not a free function. Therefore you need an instance of books to call it with.

Even if you fix the compiler errors, I wouldn't expect this program to work very well.

It seems that you have not really understood what the class books should represent in the first place. Does it represent a single book (because it has one title, one author, one price) or does it represent a collection of books (because it should provide means to search for a book)? I doubt it could be both at a time.

I didn't miss it. I forgot to comment on it.

All the code is pretty much useless as it is anyway.

I would suggest reading the problem description again:

A book store maintains the inventory of books that are being sold at the shop. The list includes details such as author, title, price, and stock position. Whenever a customer wants a book, the sales person inputs the title and author and the system searches the list and displays whether its available or not.

So you are supposed to write an inventory class and pretty much the only required member function is something like bool is_available(string title, string author).

(The requirements are a bit vague, though, if that is the full assignment description.)