Thread: Ascii conversion problems with dynamic memory

Hello. I'm attempting some programming with pointers/dynamic memory, and I'm having some problems. I want the user to be able to input some characters, and they will be output onto the screen along with the sum of their ascii values. I just can't seem to get the values to add up, and I always end up displaying a memory address when I try to display the sum. I've attempted a couple of different techniques, including the use of getch(), which is in this version of the code.



#include <iostream.h>
#include <conio.h>
void main (void)
{

int *total; // Store the sum of ascii values
total = new int;
int *input; // Store the # of char to be entered
input = new int;
int asci; // Variable

cout << "How many characters are to be entered?: ";
cin >> *input;

if (input == NULL){
cout << "Memory Error!\n";
return;
}


char *array;
array = new char[*input];

if (array == NULL){
cout << "Memory Error!\n";
return;
}

for (int count=1; count <=*input; count ++){
cout << "Enter character " << count << ":";
cin.ignore();
cin.get(array[count]);

asci = getch();


total +=asci;

if (total == NULL){
cout << "Memory Error!\n";
return;
}
}

cout << "You entered ";

for (count=0; count <=*input; count ++) {
cout <<array[count];
}
cout << endl;
cout << "The sum of the ASCII values is :" << total << "." << endl;

delete [] array;
delete [] input;
delete [] total;
}

I know it's not pertinent to the question you asked, but since you are just starting with dynamic memory you should be aware that there are two syntactical versions of delete. One for striaight pointers, and one for arrays. The pointer version is:

delete pointername;

and the array version is:

delete [] arrayname;

In your code you only use the array version, despite the fact that total and input are just pointers, and not arrays.

Also, if you are going to check that there was adequate memory for the dynamic variables, and it is a good idea, you should do so before you try to use them like you did with array, not after, like you did with input (and for some reason you didn't even check for total).