Thread: Phantom input in cin (C++)

Hello all -- I'm pretty new to C++ and C and can't figure out how to reliably detect and work around the mystery input that seems to get trapped in cin. Without any discernible pattern, VC++ seems to find something in the input buffer and thus skips the next input statement (it happens with >>, get() and getline()).

Code:

system("cls");

cout<<"                                   ADD EQUIPMENT\n"
       <<"\n\n     For non-applicable items, enter 0 or N\n";
	
cout<<"\n     Enter Name: "; getline(cin, response);
strcpy(newRecord.chrName, response.c_str());
cout<<"\n     Enter Weight Capacity (if applicable): "; cin>>newRecord.iCapacity;

I've tried the various get() and getline() buffer-flushing code snippets, but the program stops and waits for input. I need a way to check the input buffer without the program stopping and waiting for the input. I've tried get(), getline(), peek() and various combinations of them and haven't had any luck.

The method works the first time, but the second time the getline() is skipped, as if there were input.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for all the great hints I've already gotten here!

Many thanks for the replies. My problem is that if there is nothing in the buffer, the cin.ignore() waits for input. Also, it doesn't happen every time; the first pass is fine, but if I call the method a second time, it happens. So I need some kind of condition to check that doesn't wait for the user to input something if nothing is already in the stream.

The forbidden fflush(stdin) seems to be working for the moment.

If you are using VC++ 6.0 and getline, make sure you fix the bug in the VC++ standard library implementation. Check out this site and scroll down to the part about <string>

http://www.dinkumware.com/vc_fixes.html

or look at this one

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q240015

Once you apply their fix, you should be able to use getline without the ignore.

Thanks again, I had that fix in. I saw the others though and was shocked (if not surprised) at the number of them!

The stadard streams are inherently blocking. That is your program will wait for input. The nature of stdin is also that your program will generally not see any input untill the user has hit newline. If you do not have the VC++ bug mentioned by jlou then you do not need an ignore after getline() but you still have a newline after reading the int. If leading whitespace is not significant to responce(and it looks like you would want to trim that anyway) you can use

cin >> newRecord.iCapacity >> ws

ws is a manipulator that eats whitespace and throws it away.

In general user friendly keyboard input requires delving into non-portable teritory. Usually a non-blocking kbhit() and getkey(), conio.h tends to be the most widely available.

You also are using strcpy, rather than strncpy, and you are not checking the failbit from the integer read. Both major sources of confusing silent errors.

Originally posted by major_small
i've never heard of ws... where is it from?

I beleve it's in <iostream> or else <iomanip>. manipulators are one of the cool things about streams.

... which means it is included in <iostream>.

I found this from dinkumware.com, one of my favorite references:

ws
template class<Elem, Tr>
basic_istream<Elem, Tr>& ws(basic_istream<Elem, Tr>& istr);

The manipulator extracts and discards any elements ch for which use_facet< ctype<Elem> >( getloc()). is( ctype<Elem>::space, ch) is true.

The function calls setstate(eofbit) if it encounters end-of-file while extracting elements. It returns istr.

Well... maybe not that easy to understand... but the above definition is from <istream>.