problem with string class, ifstream, and getline

Hi, i'm new to c++ (have a little VB.net) and strings are much different.
I am trying to read strings and numbers from a file, and am not having much success. specifically, i am trying to read one string and 3 different numbers into the appropriate members of a structure, and create an array of these structures, then display the array on screen.
I am able to read the first string and 3 numbers fine, but then the whole thing falls apart, and i cannot understand why.
As far as i can tell, it should work perfectly. Please help if you can. What i would like is an explanation of why my code fails, not just what changes i can make to fix it (but that'd do in a pinch).

Code:

#include <cstdlib>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
char ch;
ifstream fin;
int flag = 2;
int i = 0;
struct share
       {
       string shareName;
       int noShares;
       float purchasePrice;
       float currentValue;
       };
share portfolio[20];
while (flag > 1)
       {
       cout<<"     MENU     \n"<<"Press L to Load \n"<<"Press D to Display\n"<<"Press Q to Quit\n";
       cin >> ch;
       int holder = ch;
switch (holder)
       {
    case 76: fin.open("funds.txt");
    while (i < 8)
    {

     getline(fin, portfolio[i].shareName,'\n');
     fin>>portfolio[i].noShares;
     fin>>portfolio[i].purchasePrice;
     fin>>portfolio[i].currentValue;         
     ++i;
     }    
             flag = 3;
             break;
    case 68: if (flag != 3)
          {
             cout<<"\nNo Data Loaded\n\n";
             break;
          }
             else if (flag ==3)
            {
             i = 0; 
             while (i<8)
            {
                cout<<endl<<portfolio[i].shareName<<endl;
                cout<<portfolio[i].noShares<<endl<<portfolio[i].purchasePrice;
                cout<<endl<<portfolio[i].currentValue<<endl;
             ++i;
             }              
            } 
             break;
    case 81: flag = 0;
             break;
             }
             }
             return 0;
}

here is the contents of the file i am trying to read (funds.txt).

Sweet Money
10
2
4
Argonauts
15
4
5
Wiggles
60
1
5
Human Gills
100
.5
333.33
Brain Implants
25
4654.4
456466.45
Clone Dawgs
66
987
789
Oil Gas Co.
100
40
61
College Football
100
34
519

thanks again.

Code:

cin >> ch;
       int holder = ch;
switch (holder)

Why not just make that

Code:

cin >> ch;
switch(ch)

What's the output? Does it work with only 3 lines?

An appropriately placed fin.get(); will remove the newline from the input (after the last numeric input).

And here:

Code:

    case 68:
    case 81:

Say what you mean and don't interpret too much.

I think deathbob was using numbers because the value in the switch was a number.

So are the values of 'L', 'D', and 'Q'.

I know, that's what deathbob should have used. But he didn't, and now we have to speculate on why not.

thank you so much,
fin.get();
solved it. and i changed it to switch (ch) also, i had been trying to use that before, but had put in things like
case ("L")
and it wasn't working. i left the case statements with the numbers and now it works perfectly. So what was happening? the getline(fin, portfolio[i].shareName,\n) was grabbing the newline character and that was what was messing everything up?
Thanks again

A newline is not a valid part of a number, so it is left in the stream. It is valid in a string, however.

'L', 'D', and 'Q' are different from "L", "D", and "Q".

The newline (or whichever delimiter you pass to getline) is discarded, it is not added to the string you read in.

getline and operator>> just work differently. The getline function is intended to read one section (usually a line) at a time from the input stream when each section is separated by a delimiter. The delimiter is not part of each section, so you don't add it to the string, but you don't want to add extra code to skip it so it is discarded. When you use operator>>, you are generally reading in only a single piece of data that is not necessarily separated by the next piece of data by a delimiter. That is why operator>> just reads until it can fill the variable and then stops. By default it does skip over whitespace, so you never notice that it is leaving the spaces or newlines or tabs that separate the data. It only causes a problem when you use getline immediately after operator>>.

To fix that problem, I think you can use fin.getline().