streaming - error

Hi all,
I have written this piece of code: it is supposed to recieve an istream with a string which is used to create a graph.
the istream is of the follwing format:
|vertex1,vertex2, .. ,vertexn|(v1->v2),(vi->vj)..|
example:
|1,2,3|(1->2),(2->3)|
will create a graph, where 1,2,3 are vertices, and there are edges 1->2 and 2->3

however this code fails: it creates the vertices, assigns the right "source" for the edge, but put gibrish into "dest"
below is the code, I have marked the problematic line
Please help!!

Code:

---

istream& operator >> (istream& in,Graph & g1)
{
        //local variables
        char string[MAX];
        char buff;
        int curr=0,temp,source,dest;
        Vertex v1;
        stringstream ss;
       
/**************GET VERTECIES FROM STREAM**************************************/
        //get rid of first '|'
        in >> (in, buff);
        //get first num
        in >> (in, buff);

        while (buff!='|')
        {
               
                //while still reading digits (not comma)
                while (isdigit(buff))
                {
                        string[curr]=buff;
                        in >>(in, buff);
                        curr++;
                }
                //have now read comma or |(is value of buff)
               
                //set ss to empty string stream
                ss.str(string);

                //convert to integer
                ss >> temp;

                //add new vertex with value
                g1.addVer(temp);

                //set pos in string to 0
                curr=0;
                string[curr]='\0';
                //read next digit
                if (buff!='|')
                        in >>(in, buff);
        }
/*********************GET EDGES FROM STREAM***********************************/
        //get first "("
        in >> (in, buff);
        while (buff!='|')
        {
                //for each edge!!!!!
                //flush stream
                ss.str("");               
                /********* GET SOURCE*************************/
                in >> (in, buff);
                while (isdigit(buff))
                {
                        string[curr]=buff;
                        in >>(in, buff);
                        curr++;
                }
                //add source to int
                string[curr]='\0';
                ss.flush();
                ss.str(string);
                ss >> source;
                /*********FLUSH "->" ***************************/
                in >> (in, buff) >> (in, buff);
                //at this stage, buff contains first dig of dest vertex

                curr=0;
                while (isdigit(buff))
                {
                        string[curr]=buff;
                        in >>(in, buff);
                        curr++;
                }
                //add dest to int
                string[curr]='\0';
                ss.flush();
                ss.str(string);
                ss >> dest; //HERE"S THE PROBLEM: DOESNT ASSIGN
                g1.addEd(source,dest);
                //at this stage buff contains the final ) of edge
                //get char after bracket (comma or |)
                in >> (in, buff);
                if (buff == ',')
                        in >> (in, buff) >> (in,buff);
        }

        return in;

}

---

i'm probably just wasting peoples' time.
I decided to use "atoi" for the conversion instead...
i'm not sure if it's a legit function, but i've just had enough...

atoi is standard. itoa is not.

I prefer strtol() instead of atoi() as it allows some more error checking.

--
Mats