Basic string question

Can anyone please explain to me why in the hell this isn't working... I want it to start at the beginning of the do loop if there is more than 1 character in the string, or if the character entered cannot be evaluated to a number from 1-9, but at the moment, if I enter something like:

1saisagiusgqje2132t1ge

It will register as 1.

I honestly can't see ANYTHING wrong with what I have, but I might just point out it's 3:00AM, and I'm tired, and I've probably got some ridiculously easy completely stupid mistake that I just cannot see.

I'm compiling with g++ on a Unix system. It's going to be a Tick Tack Toe game (I'm extremely bored)...

Here is the problematic snippet of code:

Code:

---

do {
                cout << "Enter a board position number: ";
                cin >> strpos;
                pos = atoi(strpos.c_str());
                if (strpos.size() > 1 || !pos)
                        continue;
        } while (!CheckSquare(pos, board, 'x'));

---

And here is the rest of what I have so far if you're interested:

Code:

---

#include <iostream>
#include <cctype>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

int CheckSquare(int square, char ** board, char player);

int main() {

        string strpos;
        int pos;

        char ** board;
        board = new char*[3];
        for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++)
                board[i] = new char[3];

        for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++)
                for (int y = 0; y < 3; y++)
                        board[i][y] = '-';

        do {
                cout << "Enter a board position number: ";
                cin >> strpos;
                pos = atoi(strpos.c_str());
                if (strpos.size() > 1 || !pos)
                        continue;
        } while (!CheckSquare(pos, board, 'x'));

        for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++)
                for (int y = 0; y < 3; y++)
                        cout << board[i][y] << " ";

        for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++)
                delete [] board[i];
        delete [] board;

}

int CheckSquare(int square, char ** board, char player) {

        int down;
        int side;

        if (square >= 7) {
                down = 2;
                side = square - 7;
        }
        else if (square >= 4) {
                down = 1;
                side = square - 4;
        }
        else {
                down = 0;
                side = square - 1;
        }

        if (board[down][side] == '-')
                board[down][side] =  player;

        else
                return 0;
}

---

Thanks.

P.S I'm probably going to end up feeling completely stupid, but oh well... I have no idea why I can't figure this out HAHA!

It appears that the continue keyword doesn't skip checking for the end condition of a loop, if that's what you meant. You probably might use a loop within a loop if you want to loop until certain conditions are met and only then check other condition as well.

What you missed is that atoi() grabs as much as it can to convert to an int. In the case of "1saisagiusgqje2132t1ge", that is 1, so it returns 1.

As alternatives, consider using a stringstream or boost::lexical_cast instead of atoi().

By the way, why do you manually manage the memory for a char** when you can use a vector (of vectors)?

There are several find functions in basic_string that will assist you.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by laserlight

What you missed is that atoi() grabs as much as it can to convert to an int. In the case of "1saisagiusgqje2132t1ge", that is 1, so it returns 1.

As alternatives, consider using a stringstream or boost::lexical_cast instead of atoi().

By the way, why do you manually manage the memory for a char** when you can use a vector (of vectors)?

---

That may be so, but why would string.length() return 1 or less than 1 even when the string has over 1 characters in it. Even if atoi() grabs as much as it can to convert to an int, the call to "string.length() > 1" should still return true.

Oh and, I thought it would be more interesting to manually manage the memory for a 2 dimensional array instead of using a vector of vectors ;p

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pobri19

That may be so, but why would string.length() return 1 or less than 1 even when the string has over 1 characters in it. Even if atoi() grabs as much as it can to convert to an int, the call to "string.length() > 1" should still return true.

---

No, length() is indeed returning a value greater than 1. The "problem" is that continue causes control to go to the end of the loop. This means that the condition is evaluated immediately as the next iteration begins. As such, if CheckSquare() returns a true/false value, the loop terminates/continues regardless of the continue statement.

What you should do to fix that is this:

Code:

---

do {
    cout << "Enter a board position number: ";
    cin >> strpos;
    pos = atoi(strpos.c_str());
} while ((strpos.size() > 1 || !pos) || !CheckSquare(pos, board, 'x'));

---

By the way, it looks like CheckSquare() has a control path that does not return a value. Also, perhaps it should return a bool instead of an int?

Oh I understand, thanks for the help!