string

Hi,

Is it possible for a user to input a string without allocating memory
space for the string?
I try something like this:

[code]
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <conio.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <iostream.h>
#include <iomanip>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <string.h>


main()
{

char *text;


printf("\nEnter text: ");
scanf("%s", pt);

printf("%s", pt);

return (0);

}
[\code]

but i got this error when i run:
"The instruction at "0x00401f24" referenced memory at "0xffffffcc". The memoty could not be "written"."

It compile and build without any problems.

No, unless if your overwriting other allocated space, there is no other way the data containing the string could be accessed without it being allocated. But it's possible to write something like
char c; scanf("%c", &c);. The user may then type in some very long string but only the first character of the string will be read in.

Mmm ok, thanks guys.

>Is it possible for a user to input a string without allocating memory space for the string?
It depends on how pedantic you are. If you mean without the programmer explicitly allocating memory then it is possible:

Code:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

int main()
{
  std::string name;

  std::cout<<"Name: ";
  if ( std::getline ( std::cin, name ) )
    std::cout<< name <<std::endl;
}

Or you could use an array and work with C-style strings:

Code:

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdio>

int main()
{
  char name[BUFSIZ];

  std::cout<<"Name: ";
  if ( std::cin.getline ( name, sizeof name ) )
    std::cout<< name <<std::endl;
}

In neither of these are you explicitly calling new to get anonymous memory. If you mean not allocate memory at all in any part of the program to hold the string, not without great difficulty. On the other hand, if you're willing to allow for a single character in memory:

Code:

#include <iostream>

using std::cout;
using std::cin;
using std::endl;

int main()
{
  char c;

  cout<<"Name: ";
  while ( cin.get(c) && c != '\n' )
    cout<< c;
  cout<<endl;
}

Thanks, Prelude! It's a great help!