Thread: IF Help

Try strcmp(user,"Andrew").

Edit: Ha...what I meant to say is that someone else will be along shortly with far more information.

1) Don't ever call main. Update your compiler, you shouldn't even be allowed to do this any more.
2) If you're using the string class, then you can use the equality operator == to test for, oddly enough, equality. Otherwise, if you're using "c strings", then you'll have to use something like strcmp to test for equality.
3) Globals.... eeeew.

Quzah.

Hello,

When comparing two strings in C, you could use strcmp(). strcmp() is a function included in the C library that Compares two strings.

It works like the following:
> Compares string1 to string2 character by character.

Code example:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main() {
    char str[] = "Hello";

    if (!strcmp(str, "Hello"))
        printf("It matched!\n");

    return 0;
}

You may be asking why I asked if strcmp() failed, or equalled zero. Though maybe this will help:

• <0 string1 is less than string2
• 0 string1 is the same as string2
• >0 string1 is greater than string2

Meanwhile, comparing strings in C++ is inherently different than comparing numbers. Numbers have constant, universally meaningful values. To evaluate the relationship between the magnitude of two strings, you must make a lexical comparison. Lexical comparison means that when you test a character to see if it is "greater than" or "less than" another character, you are actually comparing the numeric representation of those characters as specified in the collating sequence of the character set being used.

C++ provides several ways to compare strings, and each has their advantages. The simplest to use are the non member overloaded operator functions operator ==, operator != operator >, operator <, operator >=, and operator <=.

Code:

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

int main() {
    // Strings to compare
    string s1("This ");
    string s2("That ");
    for (int i = 0; i < s1.size() && i < s2.size(); i++) {
        // See if the string elements are the same:
        if (s1[i] == s2[i]) {
            cout << s1[i] << "  " << i << endl;
            // Use the string inequality operators
            if (s1 != s2) { 
                cout << "Strings aren't the same:" << " ";
                if (s1 > s2)
                    cout << "s1 is > s2" << endl;
                else
                    cout << "s2 is > s1" << endl;
            }
        }
    }

    return 0;
}

Most often, this will be the ASCII collating sequence, which assigns the printable characters for the English language numbers in the range from 32 to 127 decimal. In the ASCII collating sequence, the first "character" in the list is the space, followed by several common punctuation marks, and then uppercase and lowercase letters. With respect to the alphabet, this means that the letters nearer the front have lower ASCII values than those nearer the end.


- Stack Overflow

C++ provides several ways to compare strings, and each has their advantages. The simplest to use are the non member overloaded operator functions operator ==, operator != operator >, operator <, operator >=, and operator <=.

No, the simplest to use is in fact the overloaded == operator, since you're using the string class. What's the point in looping through it by hand when you can just do one test?

Code:

string s1("This ");
string s2("That ");

if( s1 == s2 )
    cout << "They're equal.";
else
    cout << "They're not.";

I can appreciate your showing them how to loop through the individual characters (which can be done with 'c strings' as well), but to say it's the "simplest" is not correct.

Quzah.