Converting an Array of Character to a String

I am a newbie and completed a phone book project in which a user could enter a single name, number and single-word note for each entry. In a follow-up, the instructor has now required that the program accept names and notes that might be multiple words. I set the program up with a first class for entries and second class for the phone book; “currentname” and “currentnumber” are variables declared in the phone book class. The “add entry to the phone book” function below is intended to receive a character array (all words and spaces between) for names and numbers. The function is within the phone book class. I am getting error messages at the lines where I hope to make conversions of character arrays to strings.

Code:

    void enterNewContact(){        char tempName[40], tempNote[50];
        if (num_entries > 0)
            i = num_entries;
        else
            i = 0;
        cout << "Please enter Name:";
        cin.getline(tempName, 40);
        currentname(tempName);           //Intending that the character array be "converted" to string here.  Getting error message.
        entryItem[i].setName(currentname);
        cout << "Please enter Number:";
        cin >> currentnumber;
        while (currentnumber.at(3) != '-'){
            cout << "Please enter the phone number in the following format: XXX-XXXX" << endl;
            cout << "Please enter Number:";
            cin >> currentnumber;
        }
        entryItem[i].setNumber(currentnumber);
        cout << "Please enter Note:" << endl;
        cin.getline(tempNote, 50);
        currentnote(tempNote);             //Same issue here.
        entryItem[i].setNote(currentnote);
        num_entries++;
        cout << "The new entry has been added to the Phone book."  << endl;
        }

Use assign operator instead of ()

Code:

currentname = tempName;

Actually you can skip it and call just

Code:

entryItem[i].setName(tempName);

causing the conversion constructor to be called implicitly.

Thanks DRK. I tried both ways and get Runtime errors.

The rest of the function code seems to be OK. The runtime error is triggered probably somewhere else in the program. Provide more information about declarations of:
entryItem
currentname , setName()
currentnumber , setNumber()
currentnote , setNote()

Please show how and where currentname is defined.

Jim

Here is my code

Code:

#include <iostream>#include <fstream>
#include <string>
#include <cstring>


using namespace std;


int phoneBookCheck = 0, delete_choice;
int i, k = 0, num_entries;
string currentname, currentnumber, currentnote;  //Here is where I declare currentname, currentnumber, and currentnote.
char functionchoice;


class entry {
private:
	string name1, number1, note1;
public:
	entry(){
		name1 = " ";
		number1= " ";
		note1 = " ";
	}
	entry(string name, string number, string note){
		name1 = name;
		number1 = number;
		note1 = note;
	}
	void setName(string x){name1 = x;}
	void setNumber(string y){number1 = y;}
	void setNote(string z){note1 = z;}
	string getName()   {return name1;}
	string getNumber() {return number1;}
	string getNote()   {return note1;}
};
class phoneBook {
public:
	entry entryItem[100];
	int num_entries;


	phoneBook(){
		num_entries = 0;
	}
//There are other phone book functions I have left out.
	void enterNewContact(){
		char tempName[40], tempNote[50];
		if (num_entries > 0)
			i = num_entries;
		else
				i = 0;
		cout << "Please enter Name:";
		cin.getline(tempName, 40);
		entryItem[i].setName(tempName);
		cout << "Please enter Number:";
		cin >> currentnumber;
		while (currentnumber.at(3) != '-'){
			cout << "Please enter the phone number in the following format: XXX-XXXX" << endl;
			cout << "Please enter Number:";
			cin >> currentnumber;
		}
		entryItem[i].setNumber(currentnumber);
		cout << "Please enter Note:" << endl;
		cin.getline(tempNote, 50);
		entryItem[i].setNote(tempNote);
		num_entries++;
		phoneBookCheck = 0;
		cout << "The new entry has been added to the Phone book." << endl;
	}
};  //End of the phone book class.

you can skip char arrays altogether if you do the following:

Code:

std::string temp;
std::getline(cin, temp);
entryitem[i].setName(temp)

char arrays can be very error-prone, and have virtually no place in modern C++. std::string is really the way to go for any text handling needs.

Originally Posted by IPthereforIam

I tried both ways and get Runtime errors.

Well, are you going to post any details about those Runtime errors?

You may as well have just said "I have a secret for you".

Sorry iMalc - I appreciate you considering my problem and should have explained better. I am inserting a screen shot. The red text is the description of the error and my comment is in green.

Thank you Elkvis for your help. I will try this today.

As the error says.. you're accessing out of range index values from a std::string.
This wasn't caught by a char array.. but as the string throws an exception, you now know what to look for.

Run the debugger and find out the exact line in which the exception is thrown.

my comment is in green.

It looks like part of your problem is possibly being caused by mixing the C++ extraction operator>> and getline(). You probably have a newline character left in the input buffer that your getline() takes as the end of its input. I can't really see the actual value of currentnumber in your picture, but it looks like there are only 3 characters, the std::string.at() starts at 0 so if there are only 3 characters in this string it will throw an exception, at(3) would be out of bounds. You may want to check the length of the string before you use your magic number in a test.

Jim