Thread: "getline" won't work but "cin" will, what am I doing wrong?

  1. #1
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    Question "getline" won't work but "cin" will, what am I doing wrong?

    Good afternoon everyone,

    I was reading the "Jumping into c++" book when I got to exercise 4-1 that states:

    "Ask the user for two users' ages, and indicate who is older; behave differently if both are over 100"

    So I wrote my code (but I'm only stating what matters)

    Code:
        string name1;
        string name2;
        int age1;
        int age2;
    
        cout << "User 1 please state your name: " << endl;
        getline( cin, name1, '\n' );
        cout << "User 1 please tell us your age: " << endl;
        cin >> age1;
    
        cout << "User 2 please state your name: " << endl;
        getline( cin, name2, '\n' );
        cout << "User 2 please tell us your age: " << endl;
        cin >> age2;
    So here is my problem:

    Immediately after the "User 2 please state your name: " is printed on the screen, "User 2 please tell us your age: " is printed, making it so I can't type the User 2' name, this happens using the "getline( cin, name2, '\n' )" (underlined), but when I use a "cin >> name2", the program works just fine.

    What am I doing wrong? Can someone help?

    Thanks,

    Rodrigo

  2. #2
    Registered User sirama's Avatar
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    So you don't get that doubt for your User 1 input?

    In the console, I hope you can't move your cursor wherever you want and provide the input.

    User 2 please state your name: X
    User 2 please tell us your age: Y

    Printing the Question like said above is possible. But providing the input in the location X, Y is not possible. The input will be given like:
    User 2 please state your name:
    User 2 please tell us your age: MyName
    20

  3. #3
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    @sirama

    That is what's bothering me, everything works fine for user1, but when I get to user2 I get something like

    "User 1 please state your name:
    x
    User 1 please tell us your age:
    23
    User 2 please state your name:
    User 2 please tell us your age:
    24"

    then I comes the output..

    "is older" (since no name was given for the 2nd user)

  4. #4
    C++ Witch laserlight's Avatar
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    Look at this line:
    Code:
    cin >> age1;
    The user enters an age value that is stored into age1. The act of entering the input results in a newline left in the input buffer. This newline is not read. Now, when you do this:
    Code:
    getline( cin, name2, '\n' );
    The newline is read, except that you wanted to read the next line. The appropriate solution is to use cin.ignore() to ignore the newline first.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bjarne Stroustrup (2000-10-14)
    I get maybe two dozen requests for help with some sort of programming or design problem every day. Most have more sense than to send me hundreds of lines of code. If they do, I ask them to find the smallest example that exhibits the problem and send me that. Mostly, they then find the error themselves. "Finding the smallest program that demonstrates the error" is a powerful debugging tool.
    Look up a C++ Reference and learn How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

  5. #5
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    @laserlight

    Thank you for the explanation.

    Problem solved =)

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