switch using enum

Can someone please tell me why my output is always a 1 in my simple switch statement

Code:

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#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main() {
    enum switcher {off, on};
    char* state;
    switcher switch_state;
   
    cout << "Enter switch state:";
    cin >> state; 

    if (state == "off")
        switch_state = off;
    else
        switch_state = on;
       
    cout << switch_state << endl;
    system("PAUSE");
    return 0;
}

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Thanks

Maybe you shouldn't declare state as a pointer, since the input is coming directly from the user. Though I might be wrong, my experience with enum is pretty green.

> char* state;
This is an unallocated pointer
Try
char state[100];

> if (state == "off")
This just compares pointers
Try
if ( strcmp( state, "off") == 0 )

Cheers Salem :)

And as is often the case, just using the standard string class makes the fix even easier. Here is your original code using a string. All I did was switch the char* to string and add the <string> header. No need to use strcmp or set the size of the char array:

Code:

---

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int main() {
    enum switcher {off, on};
    string state;
    switcher switch_state;
   
    cout << "Enter switch state:";
    cin >> state; 

    if (state == "off")
        switch_state = off;
    else
        switch_state = on;
       
    cout << switch_state << endl;
    system("PAUSE");
    return 0;
}

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