Thread: 3D array problem

I have an assignment to write a program that asks a user the year, model, and condition of a vehicle and display the price. We have to use a 3-D array to hold all of the values and a 2-D array to hold all of the names of the cars. The function I am having a problem with is the one that asks the user the year, model, and condition of the car. Say the person enters "Camry" for the model and "Used" for the condition, I need a way to assign a numeric value to a variable to represent the location of the price in the 3-D array. At first I was going to use a switch statement but visual studio kept telling me that you cant use a switch statement with a string. Here is the code I have so far, I'll post the whole thing but I pointed out where I was having the problem.

Code:

#include<iostream>
#include<iomanip>
#include<fstream>
#include<string>
#include<cmath>
#include<cctype>
using namespace std;
char userprompt();
void getdata(ifstream& Readfile, float carvalues[100][17][4]);
void openfile(ifstream& Readfile);
float findcarvalue(char carnames[100][100], float carvalues[100][17][4]);
int main()
{
	float carvalues[100][17][4];
	char carnames[100][100]={"Altima", "Avalanche", "Camaro", "Camry", "CTS", "E350", "Escalade", "Explorer", "F150", "Fairlane", "S600", "Silverado", "Suburban", "Tacoma", "Tahoe", "Titan", "Tundra"};
	float carvalue;
	ifstream Readfile;
	openfile(Readfile);
	getdata(Readfile, carvalues);
	switch(userprompt())
	{
		case'f':
		case'F':
			carvalue = findcarvalue(carnames, carvalues);
			cout << endl << "The price of that vehicle is " <<carvalue;
			break;
		case'c':
		case'C':
			cout << "computeaverage";
			break;
		case's':
		case'S':
			cout << "showprices";
			break;
		case'h':
		case'H':
			cout << "cheapestcar";
			break;
		case'a':
		case'A':
			cout << "showallvalues";
			break;
		case'q':
		case'Q':
			break;
		default:
			cout << "Invalid Input!";
	}
	return 0;
}
void openfile(ifstream& Readfile)
{
	string pathname;
	cout << "Hello, Welcome to Kelly Green Book." << endl;
	cout << "What is the name of the input file? " << endl;
	cin >> pathname;
	Readfile.open(pathname.c_str());
}
char userprompt()
{
	char action;
	cout << endl << "What would you like to do?" << endl
	<< "F = Find a car value" << endl
	<< "C = Compute average" << endl
	<< "S = Show Prices" << endl
	<< "H = Find the cheapest car" << endl
	<< "A = Show all values" << endl
	<< "Q = Quit" << endl;
	cin >> action;
	return action;
}
void getdata(ifstream& Readfile, float carvalues[100][17][4])
{
	float price;
	for (int year = 0; year < 7; year++)
	{
		for (int model = 0; model < 17; model++)
		{
			for (int condition = 0; condition < 4; condition++)
			{
				Readfile >> price;
				carvalues[year][model][condition] = price;
			}
		}
	}
}
float findcarvalue(char carnames[100][100], float carvalues[100][17][4]) 
{
	float year, mlocation, carvalue, clocation;
	char model, condition;
	cout << endl << "Year: ";              //Here is where I am having the problem.
	cin >> year;
	year = 2007 - year;
	cout << endl << "Model: ";
	cin >> model;
	cout << endl << "Condition(Excellent/Fine/Good/Used): ";
	cin >> condition;
	return carvalue;
}

Any help would be great, Thanks.

You're going to have to figure out what index to use between 0 and 17 or whatever, based on the name of the car, right? If you knew std::map, you wouldn't be asking the question, so I'm guessing you don't. In that case, I guess you can loop over the names in your array o' names -- if the input and carnames[i] compare equal, then that's your index.