Thread: cin.getline question (user's input too long)

Hello everyone!

I have the following problem. The user is asked to input some data with the following command:

//declarations:
char a[81];
char b[81];
char c[81];

//user is asked to input three lines of text:
cin.getline(a, 81, '\n');
cin.getline(b, 81, '\n');
cin.getline(c, 81, '\n');


Now, the problem occurs if the user's input is longer than 80 characters.

E.g. if the user inputs a string that is 90 characters long, then he cannot input the preceding lines (b and c). When using:

cout << a << endl << b << endl << c << endl;

the string a is shown as string of 80 characters, but the strings b and c are empty.

Why does this occur?

How to solve this problem?
I cannot force user to input a string that is shorter than, let's say, 80 characters

Thank you in advance!

Bye!

use the ignore() function to ignore any excessive input. Similar, but not same as using fflush or endl with cout. It leaves things to be desired, but at least it works (most of the time).

#include limits.h

const int MAXINT = max_int// this syntax is wrong. look up the real syntax by doing a search of the board. I usually use 80 for MAXINT, but that's a hedge because I can't remember the correct syntax.

char a[81];
char b[81]

cin.getline(a, 80, '\n');
cin.ignore(MAXINT, '\n');
cin.getline(b, 80. '\n');
cin.ignore(MAXINT, '\n');