testing 2 strings for equality

here is my code. in void function lookupInfo, how to i test the 2 strings for equality? everything works except the if statement.

#include <iostream.h>
#include <fstream.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <string.h>

struct inputInfo
{
char name[25];
short ext;
};

void enterInfo();
void lookupInfo();

void main()
{ char choice = ' ';
cout<< "Enter E to enter info or L to lookup info or Q to quit: ";
cin>> choice;
cin.ignore (100,'\n');
choice = toupper(choice);
while( choice != 'Q')
{
if (choice == 'E')
enterInfo();
else
if(choice == 'L')
lookupInfo();

cout<< "Enter E to enter info or L to lookup info or Q to quit: ";
cin>> choice;
cin.ignore (100,'\n');
choice = toupper(choice);
}
}
void enterInfo()
{
inputInfo record = {"",0};

ofstream outFile;
outFile.open ("T7Be08.dat",ios::app);
if (!outFile.fail () )
{
cout<< "Enter name: ";
cin.get (record.name,25,'\n');
cin.ignore (100,'\n');

cout<< "Enter extention number: ";
cin>> record.ext;
cin.ignore (100,'\n');

outFile<< record.name << '#'<< record.ext << endl;

outFile.close ();
}
else
cout<< "File not opened"<< endl;
}
void lookupInfo()
{
char lookupName[25]= "";
cout<< "Enter lookup name: ";
cin.get (lookupName,25,'\n');
cin.ignore (100,'\n');



inputInfo record = {"",0};

ifstream inFile;
inFile.open ("T7Be08.dat",ios::in);
if (!inFile.fail () )
{
inFile.get (record.name ,25,'#');
inFile.ignore (1);
inFile>> record.ext ;
inFile.ignore (1);
while (!inFile.eof () )
{
// if (stricmp(record.name,lookupName) == 0 ) how
// do i test these 2 strings for equality?
// {
cout<< record.name << '\n';
cout<< record.ext << '\n';
inFile.get (record.name ,25,'#');
inFile.ignore (1);
inFile>> record.ext ;
inFile.ignore (1) ;
// }
}
}
}

stricmp(record.name,lookupName) == 0 will be a true statement if the cstyle string called record.name is the same as the cstyle string lookupName. stricmp is the case insensitive version of strcmp which is case sensitive. therefore if you wish to do something if the two strings are the same just use the above statement as the condition of an if statement as you have done and it should work.

You can use either strcmp(), strncmp() and memcmp() to compare the two string to equality.

strcmp() (as you know) takes pointers to string1 and string2 as arguments.

strncmp() and memcmp(): first two arguments are the same as strcmp(), and the third one is the length that you want to compare ( this will allow to compare the first 3 bytes, for example).

strcmp() and strncmp() work only with strings, but memcmp() will compare the memory areas no matter what variable type is used.

All three functions return:

-1 if string1 is smaller than string2 (I say smaller because chars are really integer values, and this is how the comparison is done).

0 if string1 is equal to string2

1 if string1 is bigger than string2

Hope this helps.

.