cin infinite loop

Hi,
may someone tell me why the following code doesn't work when i insert a char instead of an integer? What should i do?

Code:

---

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main(){
    int x;
    while(true){cout<<"Insert an integer\n";
    if(cin>>x){
    cout<<"number is valid\n";
    break;}
    else{cout<<"number is invalid.Try again\n";cin.clear();}}
    system("pause");
    return 0;}

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You have instructed the computer to read an integer, not a char variable.
Although the compiler will reconize a char as a small byte integer.
In what way will it "not work"?
Do you get an error message, or is it a logical error?

If i insert a char instead of an integer the program enters in an infinite loop.
Shouldn't the clear() function clear the input buffer so as to be able to read a new input?

You should also remove the wrong char from the stream

Code:

---

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
    int x;
    while(true)
        {
                cout<<"Insert an integer\n";
                if(cin>>x)
                {
                        cout<<"number is valid\n";
                        break;
                }
                else
                {
                        cout<<"number is invalid.Try again\n";
                        cin.clear();
                        cin.ignore();                }
        }
    system("pause");
    return 0;
}

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by tezcatlipooca

If i insert a char instead of an integer the program enters in an infinite loop.
Shouldn't the clear() function clear the input buffer so as to be able to read a new input?

---

clear clers the wrong state flags, not the content of the stream

>> cin.ignore();
Note that this will only ignore a single character. If the user types a paragraph, it will only ignore the first letter, then run the loop again and output the error message, then ignore another character, and so on.

What you probably want is to ignore everything up until the user hit enter to submit their input:

Code:

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std::cin.ignore(std::numeric_limits<std::streamsize>::max(), '\n');

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You have to #include <limits> and <ios> for numeric_limits and streamsize. You could also just put in some big number like 1000 which will work 99.99% of the time anyway since users rarely will type more than 1000 characters at a prompt.