Structures

I'm working on a problem that ask the following:

Write a program that lets the user fill in a single structure with name, address, and phone number of a single person.

The problem I keep running into is when I input an address that has whitespace the program doesn't allow the user to input their phone number. I would really appreciate if someone can point me into the right direction to resolve my issue. Thanks!

Here is what my code looks like:

Code:

---


#include "stdafx.h"
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;
struct UserInfo {

    string firstName;
    string lastName;
    string address;
    int phoneNumber;
};


int main(){

    UserInfo user[1];
    for (int i = 0; i < 1; i++) {
        cout << "Please enter your first name: ";
        cin >> user[i].firstName;
        cout << "Please enter your last name: ";
        cin >> user[i].lastName;
        cout << "Please enter your address: ";
        cin >> user[i].address;
        cout << "Please enter your phone number: ";
        cin >> user[i].phoneNumber;
        cout << "\n";

    }
    system("pause");
    return 0;
}

---

Quote:

---

The problem I keep running into is when I input an address that has whitespace the program doesn't allow the user to input their phone number.

---

You may want to consider getline() instead of the extraction operator>> for all of your strings. Also a "phone number" isn't really a number and should probably be stored as a string.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jimblumberg

You may want to consider getline() instead of the extraction operator>> for all of your strings. Also a "phone number" isn't really a number and should probably be stored as a string.

---

I made the edits and my program worked perfectly:

Code:

---


#include "stdafx.h"
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

struct UserInfo {

    string firstName;
    string lastName;
    string address;
    string phoneNumber;
};


int main(){

    UserInfo user[1];
    for (int i = 0; i < 1; i++) {
        cout << "Please enter your first name: ";
        getline(cin, user[i].firstName);
        cout << "Please enter your last name: ";
        getline(cin, user[i].lastName);
        cout << "Please enter your address: ";
        getline(cin, user[i].address);
        cout << "Please enter your phone number: ";
        getline(cin, user[i].phoneNumber);
        cout << "\n";

    }
    system("pause");
    return 0;
}

---

Can to you explain to me why getline() is better to use in this situation instead of cin?

std::cin >> str; skips whitespace (space, tab, newline, etc) and then reads characters up to but not including the next whitespace character.

So when your address had a space in it, only the first part was read, leaving the rest in the input buffer. Then you tried to read that as an integer, which didn't work too well.

std::getline(std::cin, str); reads an entire line, whitespace and all. It also "consumes" the newline at the end of the line but doesn't store it in the string.

Thank you for the explination!