Thread: An infintely looping while loop and the quandry of != relational operators

Okay, so the time has come for me to correct a hole in my knowledge about my while loops, namely, why they never seem to be able to check for my != relational operators.

So I was writing a loop for the inventory function of my text adventure when I realized that the best thing I could use to check to see if the player had input certain integers was the != operator. I wrote it like so:

Code:

  while (inventory_choice_reference != 1 || inventory_choice_reference != 2 || inventory_choice_reference !=9)
        {
            cout << "You are currently carrying: \n";
            if (healing_potion_reference > 0)
            {
                cout << "1. Healing Potion (Restores player to full health (10)) \n";
            }
            if (half_healing_potion_reference > 0)
            {
                cout << "2. Half Healing Potion (gain 3 health)\n";
            }
            cout << "Enter the number of the item you'd like to use, or type 9 to exit: ";
            cin >> inventory_choice_reference;
            if (inventory_choice_reference == 1 && healing_potion_reference == 0)
            {
                cout << "You don't have one of those.\n";
                inventory_choice_reference = 0;
            }
            if (inventory_choice_reference == 2 && half_healing_potion_reference == 0)
            {
                cout << "You don't have one of those.\n";
                inventory_choice_reference = 0;
            }
        }

This loops even if the player inputs 9 as the inventory_choice_reference, but I know that inventory_choice_reference is being modified properly because the "You don't have one of those." statements show up fine when you enter 1 or 2, but not 9.

I've had problems like this when putting != statements as loop conditions before. So much so that I usually define loops around case switches a bit like this:

Code:

while (player_choices.tutorial_choice_two > 2 || player_choices.tutorial_choice_two < 1)
            {
            cout << "Choose an option: \n";
            cin >> player_choices.tutorial_choice_two;
            cin.ignore();
        switch (player_choices.tutorial_choice_two)
            {
            case 1:
                breathe_deep (player_race_reference, player_health_stat_reference, location_reference, healing_potion_reference, half_healing_potion_reference, inventory_choice_reference);
                cout << "You open your eyes. /n/nThe mare gives you a nod. \"Good work, your heart rate is down allready.\"\n\n";
            break;
            case 2:
                cout<< "The mare sighs, \"Okay, I'll admit, it DOES seem a bit silly, and it's not like you have a lot of reason to trust me...\nStill, if you ever feel more comfortable with it, I'd reccomend giving it a try.\"\n\n";
            break;
            }
            }

To avoid having to deal with using != even though I know some user might type in 1.5 some day and blow up their computer.

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong here? I could really use the help.

Oh now I get it! Thank you so much Salem!
I fixed the whole thing by making the ||s into &&s. I really need to brush up on basic true and false.