Thread: odd behavior of cin.getline when it follows cin

Im having a bit of a problem with this:

Code:

apstring String //String class that I gotta use
char Hmm[8]
cout << "Prompt - ";
cin >> String;
cout << "\nPrompt -";
cin.getline(Hmm, 8)

The program compiles fine, but when I run it, it accepts input to the first prompt but then, after displaying the second prompt, skips over the call of cin.getline immediately to the next statement. Hmm is left empty. It seems, however, to work if the cin.getline call is first.

I'm confused.

There's crap in your buffer. Use cin.ignore() before your call to getline.

we all try to avoid learning details when we don't have to, but sometimes there is no altrernatve. For better or worse, >> leaves the terminating white space in the input buffer. Since the next >> ignores any leading whitespace it isn't a big deal. Unfortunately, getline() doesn't ignore whitespace. If the newline char is the whitespace terminating the >> preceding the call to getline() then the first char getline will see is a newline char left over from the previous call to >> and if newline is the terminating char for getline() (newline is the defualt terminating char for getline() by the way) then nothing will be stored in the string used by getline(). Calling ignore() to clear the buffer after each call to >>, or at least after the last >> preceding a call to getline(), is the way to remedy the situation. ignore() defaults to ignoring one char which is a newline char, although you can override the defaults if you wish.