Compare text string to a specific character.

Hello.

I recently started out with C++ and I was going to make a piece of code compare a letter in a text string to a specific letter, Now I have made a code that can do this, but it has some problems that I'm sure you will understand when you see it :

Code:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main()
{

char *text_string = "abcddcba";
char *compare = "aaaaaaaa"; 
char *compare1 = "bbbbbbbb";
char *compare2 = "cccccccc";
char *compare3 = "dddddddd";

int Length = strlen(text_string);

for (int i = 0; i < Length; ++i){
 if(text_string[i] == compare[i]){
	 cout <<i+1<< "=a"<< endl;
}else
if(text_string[i] == compare1[i]){
	 cout <<i+1<< "=b"<< endl;
}else
	if(text_string[i] == compare2[i]){
	 cout <<i+1<< "=c"<< endl;
}else
	if(text_string[i] == compare3[i]){
	 cout <<i+1<< "=d"<< endl;
}
}
cout << "Length of text is: " << Length;
cin.get();
return 0;
}

The program prints what I want it to:
1=a
2=b
3=c
etc.


Now the problem is that if I use this code my compare variables must be over 20 letters long.
int compare = "20xa".

Before I got this code to even work I tried this code that would have been alot better:

Code:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main()
{

char *text_string = "abcddcba";


int Length = strlen(text_string);

for (int i = 0; i < Length; ++i){
 if(text_string[i] == "a"){
	 cout <<i+1<< "=a"<< endl;
}else
if(text_string[i] == "b"){
	 cout <<i+1<< "=b"<< endl;
}else
	if(text_string[i] == "c"){
	 cout <<i+1<< "=c"<< endl;
}else
	if(text_string[i] == "d"){
	 cout <<i+1<< "=d"<< endl;
}
}
cout << "Length of text is: " << Length;
cin.get();
return 0;
}

But ofcourse that didnt work.
If anyone have any better solution to this I would appreciate if you could post it here.

ps: I hope you understand what I mean, my english isnt the best.

When you make a comparison, the two things being compared ought to be the same type, or either it won't work at all, because there is no type conversion possible to make things the same type, or the conversion could happen implicitly by mistake. In this case, no conversion can take place

Code:

text_string[i] == "a"
text_string[i] == "b"
text_string[i] == "c"
text_string[i] == "d"

because we have a character on the left and a string on the right.

Code:

text_string[i] == 'a'
text_string[i] == 'b'
text_string[i] == 'c' 
text_string[i] == 'd'

text_string should be declared as
const char *

since it is pointing to the constant string that cannot be modified

Well, in the final program that string is going to be changed before it gets to the for loop.
And I know that the comarision of different types doesnt work.

Edit: using const char didnt work. I got the "operand types are incompatible" when I compared const char *text to "a"

Originally Posted by Danne

Well, in the final program that string is going to be changed before it gets to the for loop.
And I know that the comarision of different types doesnt work.

Edit: using const char didnt work. I got the "operand types are incompatible" when I compared const char *text to "a"

You'll want to be aware, then, that "a" and 'a' are way way way way different and if you use the first when you want the second you'll get "operand types are incompatible".

Originally Posted by tabstop

You'll want to be aware, then, that "a" and 'a' are way way way way different and if you use the first when you want the second you'll get "operand types are incompatible".

Oh, I had no idea about that. I tried using the 'a' and it works perffectly now.
But what is the difference between "a" and 'a'? "a" is a char and 'a' is a string?
Anways Thank you very much.

almost, "a" is a nullterminated string, while 'a' is just a single character a.