people's names manager

how could i simplify this code?

Code:

---

#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>

using namespace std;

class person
{
    public:
        static int total;
        person();
        string name;
};

int person::total = 0;

person::person()
{
    total++;
}

int main()
{
    int x;
    do
    {
        if(x==0)
        {
            cout<<"Gotta create at least one person."<<endl<<endl;
        }
        cout<<"How many people do you wanna create? ";
        cin>>x;
    }
    while(x == 0);

    person people[x];
    cout<<"There are currently "<<person::total<<" people."<<endl;
    cin.get();cin.get();


    x=0;
    string newName;
    do
    {
        cout<<"Whose name do you wanna set? ";
        cin>>x;

        if(x > person::total)
        {
            cout<<"There is no such person."<<endl;
            cin.get();
            cout<<endl;
            continue;
        }

        if(x != 0)
        {
            cout<<endl<<"Enter a name for Person N. "<<x<<": ";
            cin>>newName;
            people[x].name = newName;
            cout<<"Person N. "<<x<<"'s name has been set to "<<newName<<".";
            cout<<endl<<endl;
        }
    }
    while(x != 0);
}

---

also, i'd like to list all the people's names that have been set, but i still havent figured out how to do that.

Ignoring everything that is wrong about what you are doing presently, the fact is that the number of people without names taken away from the total people leaves you with the number of people who have names.

I don't recall variable length arrays being a feature in C++, and even if they are, it's already done by the vector class.

dhuan, without wanting to offend, where or how are you learning to code in C++ as that is some pretty poor code (even for a beginner). I am assuming that whatever methods you are using are teaching pretty poor form and therefore I would suggest changing.

I would recommend either the tutorials on this site or Accelerated C++ or Programming Principles and Practice using C++.

Please don't take this as an attack, as I am genuinely trying to help by referring you to better teaching materials.

Quote:

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dhuan, without wanting to offend, where or how are you learning to code in C++ as that is some pretty poor code (even for a beginner)

---

Trust me, my classmates write much worse code ...

i was going to reply to this earlier but then thought no... anyway the points made are valid, the code is flawed and looks like running before walking, or having the idea but reaching for tools not yet available, which is a good thing, imo so long as you take some advice and practice basics with similar themes first

Quote:

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Originally Posted by whiteflags

I don't recall variable length arrays being a feature in C++, and even if they are, it's already done by the vector class.

---

There is no such thing in C++ (probably never will be either).
As such, this is not valid ISO C++ code.

Some points, arranged in order of what I consider "advancedness":

• The variable x is uninitialized at the beginning of main(). Uninitialized variables can take on any value, which you cannot predict and which may change between runs of the program. If x happens to be 0, the user will get a spurious warning message about creating at least one person. I suggest you initialize it to a non-zero value, like maybe -1.
• You have an off-by-one error in this code:
  
  Code:

  ---

  if(x > person::total)

  ---

  The intent is to prevent a buffer overflow on the array people[]. But consider if 1 was entered originally; people will have one element, element [0], and total will have been incremented once to 1. If the user later enters 1, it will not be the case that 1 > 1, and the code will try to access people[1].name. This is a buffer overrun. The if statement I quoted should use >= instead of >. (Or subtract 1 from the x the user enters if you don't want the user to think about zero-based indexing.)
• The variable-length array is an issue, of course. You could use a vector instead. But with a vector there's no need for the user to enter the number of people in beforehand. You could have the user enter names and as they do so, add new people onto the end of the vector. It would certainly make the program easier to use.
• It's really not a best practise to use public variables in classes. If you felt up to it you could create getters and setters for name and total, maybe write some member functions like readNameFromUser(), that sort of thing.