Getting multiple inputs using cin

OK, so here's the deal. I'm writing a text-based program that accepts either single-character inputs, or multiple inputs from its own prompt. So, the following inputs are valid:

Code:

---

PROGRAM_PROMPT>  e

...and

PROGRAM_PROMPT>  d 20 3

---

So, I'd like to be able to accept single-character, as well as single-character/int/int input. This should act kind of like command line arguments, but it's within the program. How do I go about doing this?

Read a whole line into a char array (or a string), using say getline, then parse the string looking for keywords / parameters etc.

int i
int iVariable[ size ]
char strVariable[ size ]

while ( reading keyBoard and not eof )
{
if ( strVariable is alpha ) continue
else
iVariable [ i ] = alpha to interger strVariable
i++
} // end while

There are better, more complicated ways. Try this first