String to Array

One thing I am wondering is how to I put a string of info into a multidimensional array?

Let me specify the array:

Code:

 char name[10][80];

Now in one of my functions I need to input between 1 to 10 different names into that array.

I have tried three different ways, each being unsuccessful. Let me show you the ways I have tried. The first being the only one where I have got some result, but I need it to include spaces.

Code:

for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
    cin >> name[i];
...
}

Obviously that would only input everything up until a whitespace character.

I tried the following two methods which I though would've worked, but didn't...

Code:

#include <cstring>
...

for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
    gets(name[i]);
...
}

Code:

for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
    cin.getline(name[i], 80, '\n');
...
}

Here is a snippet of my code and it's output with effort 2.

Code:

void enter()
{
    int i;
    
    for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)
    {
        cout << "\n\nEnter employee's name: ";
        gets(name[i]);
        cout << "Enter phone number: ";
        gets(phone[i]);
        cout << "Enter number of hours worked: ";
        cin >> hours[i];
        cout << "Enter wage: ";
        cin >> wage[i];
    }
}

Code:

Enter employee's name: Enter phone number:

One more question, what's the difference between gets() and cin.getline() anyhow? Is there a better one to use?

I'm probably just doing something extremely stupid, but I'm still new at this so take it easy on me

You need to eat the newline character after inputting the wage. So:

Code:

        cout << "\n\nEnter employee's name: ";
        cin.getline(name[i], 80, '\n');
        cout << "Enter phone number: ";
        cin.getline(phone[i], 80, '\n');
        cout << "Enter number of hours worked: ";
        cin >> hours[i];
        cout << "Enter wage: ";
        cin >> wage[i];
        cin.ignore(numeric_limits<streamsize>::max(), '\n');

>One more question, what's the difference between gets() and cin.getline() anyhow? Is there a better one to use?

If you're coding C++, use cin.getline(). I believe gets() also leaves the newline character at the end of the string. If you are using C, fgets() is preferred over gets().

Yes, I am coding in C++. The book I'm reading uses gets() and I read an online tut which uses cin.getline(). I was just wondering.

Code:

    for (i = 0; i < 1; i++)
    {
        cin.ignore(numeric_limits<streamsize>::max(), '\n');
        cout << "\n\nEnter employee's name: ";
        cin.getline(name[i], 80, '\n');
        cout << "Enter phone number: ";
        cin.getline(phone[i], 80, '\n');
        cout << "Enter number of hours worked: ";
        cin >> hours[i];
        cout << "Enter wage: ";
        cin >> wage[i];
    }
}

I do that and it works correctly. Thanks swoopy. Although I don't really understand what the cin.ignore() thing does. Could you please explain?

>Although I don't really understand what the cin.ignore() thing does. Could you please explain?

When you do:
cin >> wage[i];
There is a newline character left in the buffer from when you hit the <ENTER> key. Then when you loop the:
cin.getline(name[i], 80, '\n');
reads this newline character before you have a chance to enter the next name.

The cin.ignore() will read characters either until it sees a newline, or until the input buffer is filled. In this case you could probably just do:
cin.ignore();
Which only ignores one character, but the other is more general.

One correction: I said I thought gets() appends a newline character to the string. Actually it's fgets() which appends the newline character, not gets().

Cool stuff. Thanks for the assistance swoopy