Thread: using references (need help)

I am going through my C++ book and one of the exercises asks you to alter an earlier project using references (to make it more efficient). I have written the program (see below), but when I run the executable, I get a run-time error. Basically the program crashes when it's supposed to tell you a story using all the user input.

I think that it might be a scoping problem...but i'm going through my book to check...


All changes I made are in bold...adding references is the only change.

Code:

//Creates a story based on user input

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

string& askText(string prompt);
int& askNumber(string prompt);
void tellStory(string& name, string& noun, int& number, string& bodyPart, string& verb);

int main()
{
    cout << "Welcome to Mad Lib.\n\n";
    cout << "Answer the following questions to help create a new story.\n";
    
    string& name = askText("Please enter a name: ");
    string& noun = askText("Please enter a plural noun: ");
    int& number = askNumber("Please enter a number: ");
    string& bodyPart = askText("Please enter a body part: ");
    string& verb = askText("Please enter a verb: ");
    
    tellStory(name, noun, number, bodyPart, verb);
    
    cin.get();
    
    return 0;
}

string& askText(string prompt)
{
    string text;
    cout << prompt;
    cin >> text;
    cin.ignore();
    
    string& rText = text;
    
    return rText;
}

int& askNumber(string prompt)
{
    int num;
    cout << prompt;
    cin >> num;
    cin.ignore();
    
    int& rNum = num;
    
    return rNum;
}

void tellStory(string& name, string& noun, int& number, string& bodyPart, string& verb)
{
    cout << "\nHere's your story:\n";
    cout << "The famous explorer ";
    cout << name;
    cout << " had nearly given up a life-long quest to fine\n";
    cout << "The Lost City of ";
    cout << noun;
    cout << " when one day, the ";
    cout << noun;
    cout << " found the explorer.\n";
    cout << "Surrounded by ";
    cout << number;
    cout << " " << noun;
    cout << ", a tear came to ";
    cout << name << "'s ";
    cout << bodyPart << ".\n";
    cout << "After all this time, the quest was finally over. ";
    cout << "And then the ";
    cout << noun << "\n";
    cout << "promplty devoured ";
    cout << name << ". ";
    cout << "The moral of the story?  Be carful what you ";
    cout << verb;
    cout << " for.";
}

If you have any questions regarding the code, please ask. I should be at my computer for a few more hours trying to fix this program. Any helpful advice is welcome, thanks again!

Your functions are returning references to local variables which disappear when the functions return. Either make the local variables static (not a great idea), or return them by value.

So instead of having my functions return a reference, I can just return a value? But what about my original initialization of the variables name, noun, number, bodypart, and verb? I have tried to return
the function by value but it gives my a compile error.

Either make the local variables static (not a great idea)

I wont be able to create static variables because I have not learned about them yet. Is static the same as global?

New code:

Code:

//Creates a story based on user input

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

string askText(string prompt);
int askNumber(string prompt);
void tellStory(string& name, string& noun, int& number, string& bodyPart, string& verb);

int main()
{
    cout << "Welcome to Mad Lib.\n\n";
    cout << "Answer the following questions to help create a new story.\n";
    
    string& name = askText("Please enter a name: ");
    string& noun = askText("Please enter a plural noun: ");
    int& number = askNumber("Please enter a number: ");
    string& bodyPart = askText("Please enter a body part: ");
    string& verb = askText("Please enter a verb: ");
    
    tellStory(name, noun, number, bodyPart, verb);
    
    cin.get();
    
    return 0;
}

string askText(string prompt)
{
    string text;
    cout << prompt;
    cin >> text;
    cin.ignore();
    
    return text;
}

int askNumber(string prompt)
{
    int num;
    cout << prompt;
    cin >> num;
    cin.ignore();
    
    return num;
}

void tellStory(string& name, string& noun, int& number, string& bodyPart, string& verb)
{
    cout << "\nHere's your story:\n";
    cout << "The famous explorer ";
    cout << name;
    cout << " had nearly given up a life-long quest to fine\n";
    cout << "The Lost City of ";
    cout << noun;
    cout << " when one day, the ";
    cout << noun;
    cout << " found the explorer.\n";
    cout << "Surrounded by ";
    cout << number;
    cout << " " << noun;
    cout << ", a tear came to ";
    cout << name << "'s ";
    cout << bodyPart << ".\n";
    cout << "After all this time, the quest was finally over. ";
    cout << "And then the ";
    cout << noun << "\n";
    cout << "promplty devoured ";
    cout << name << ". ";
    cout << "The moral of the story?  Be carful what you ";
    cout << verb;
    cout << " for.";
}

[edit] This post only applies to the first bunch of code. You guys type too fast. [/edit]

You can't return references to local variables. You're trying to do this in several places, such as this:

Code:

string& askText(string prompt)
{
    string text;
    cout << prompt;
    cin >> text;
    cin.ignore();
    
    string& rText = text;
    
    return rText;
}

I'll simplify the code to this, which is equivalent:

Code:

string& askText(string prompt)
{
    string text;
    cout << prompt;
    cin >> text;
    cin.ignore();
    
    return text;
}

What you're doing is declaring a local variable text on the stack. (All "automatic" variables take up space on the stack this way.) You read some data into it, then return a reference to this variable. The trouble is, as soon as the function returns, its stack frame gets "destroyed" and any local variables cease to exist (go out of scope, as you suspected). Unfortunately, in many cases you can still access such local variables without the program seeming to crash (until you use that stack space again, by calling another function, at which point the variable will be overwritten). But it's still an error, and if your program relies on such behaviour, it could crash at any time.

Looking through your code, I don't see any place where you actually need to use references. If you remove all of the references, it should work just fine. There are a few places where you can use references, though: mostly as parameters to functions.

Let me step back a bit and say what a reference is: it's just another name for the same variable at the same location in memory. So when you pass a reference parameter to a function, all you're doing is reusing the same variable that is located in the calling function. This is good for many reasons: it saves on copying the variable (because you're just reusing it), and it allows the called function to make changes to the variable that will be reflected in the calling function. (If you don't want this to happen, you can probably pass a constant reference: e.g. "const string &name".)

But don't try to return references to local variables, nor store the results in references in the calling function. It won't work very well . . . .

The only problem with your new code is that you still have references to the returned values of functions. Code like this

Code:

    string& name = askText("Please enter a name: ");

should be

Code:

    string name = askText("Please enter a name: ");

because again, a reference to a returned value doesn't make sense. (In this case.)

Food for thought: one of the main reasons for references is to allow you to pass in parameters which the function is going to change. For example:

Code:

void swap(int &one, int &two) {
    int temp = one;
    one = two;
    two = temp;
}

That would be hard to write without references (or pointers).

What you can do is this:

Code:

    const string& name = askText("Please enter a name: ");

with askText still returning by value of course. It is only allowed to bind temporaries (which is what the return value is) to const references, not non-const references.
This is potentially more efficient than declaring name as a string because it may then avoid the need to copy the returned string data.

The places where you could use references (const to indicate that you are not going to modify the arguments) are here:

Code:

string askText(const string& prompt);
int askNumber(const string& prompt);
void tellStory(const string& name, const string& noun, int number, const string& bodyPart, const string& verb);

Also note that there is not much point in passing primitive types like ints by reference for performance reasons only.