Help with strings.

[KittyKun]

ok. I'm trying to learn C++ and i'm trying to make a simple program that i've done in 3 or 4 other languages. What it does is it asks the user for their name. If the name entered matches the name I want it to match, the program says "Hello!". Otherwise it says "Mewshi" . Here's the code i have so far.

#include <iostream.h>
int main ()
{
	cout << "What is your name?" << endl;
	char name;
	cin >> name;
	if (name==kitty)
		cout << "Hello!" << endl;
	else
		cout << "Mewshi" << endl;
	return 0;
}

Could someone help me get it to compile? i really wanna learn how to do this.

[Tonto]

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;


int main ()
{
	cout << "What is your name?" << endl;
	string name;
	cin >> name;

	if (name == "kitty")
		cout << "Hello!" << endl;
	else
		cout << "Mewshi" << endl;
	return 0;
}

This particular example making use of the C++ string class

[KittyKun]

Thanks. It works fine now ^^
So if i want to work with strings, i need to include #include <string> at the beginning of the code?

[prog-bman]

Yes and make sure you have the using namespace std

[DougDbug]

Kitty,

There are two types of strings in C++.

C++ string objects <string> are more complicated behind the scenes, but they are easier to use. Often, the syntax looks like you're using a single variable.

C-style strings <cstring> are null-terminated character-arrays. An array of ASCII values, with a zero-value indicating the end-of string. C-style strings are sometimes called character arrays or null-terminated strings.

char name; // name can only hold a single character, not the whole string.

Also, you cannot use == to compare two arrays. There is a function in <cstring> for comparing C-Style strings. It works by comparing one pair of characters at a time in a loop. However, == does work with C++ string objects because its been overloaded for the C++ string class... but that's another subject.

Because a single variable cannot hold the entire array, you generally need to use a pointer to access the array. The Cprogramming.com string tutorial uses C-style strings.

In general, C++ strings are preferred. Sometimes (as with the Win32 API) you'll have to use C-style strings, or convert your C++ string to a C-style string.