Finding similar words from 2 strings

Hi all C++ gurus
help is desperately needed here...
basically i need to capture 2 user inputs
for example

sentence1: man
sentence2: this is a man

sentence 1 is part of sentence2

sentence1: boy
sentence2: this is a man

sentence 1 is not part of sentence 2


i need to use a while loop (end of sentence 2 or match found)
as well as a if loop to compare first char of sentence 1 to any match char in sentence 2
then use a while loop to test the rest of string 1 string2
i came up with the below code but somehow the loop doesn't work..it will always say sentence is not part of sentence 2 even though i type 2 same words

please help!! :( :(
================================================== ==========================================

Code:

---

#include <vcl.h>
#include "MT262io.h"
#pragma hdrstop

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------

#pragma argsused
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{

AnsiString first;
AnsiString second;
bool flag = false;
int counter;
int count;


first = ReadStringPr("Enter 1st sentence: ");
second = ReadStringPr("Enter 2nd sentence: ");

int y = Length (first);
int x = Length(second);

while (count == x) //loop through 2nd string
                {

                    if ( first[1] == second [counter]) //to check if first letter of first string matches any char in 2nd string
                        {
                            counter = counter +1;

                            while ( first[2] == second[counter] )
                            {
                                flag ==true;
                                WriteStringCr (" 1st sentence is part of 2nd sentence");

                            }
                        }




}

        WriteStringCr("1st sentence is not part of second sentence" );




        getchar();
        return 0;
}

---

my first guess is that your loop will mostly never work because you never initialized your count variable. what are the chances of it being equal to x before the loop starts? might as well play the lottery instead... you might win something

thanks for the reply
i m new to C++

i m not sure with how the while sentence shd be protrayed...
so shd i be doing this??

int count = 1;

while (count<= x) // loop through sentence 2 or when match found)

If you aren't required to use the method that you're using (ie. it's for a class and the assignment calls for it), then consider using the std::string class (though I think AnsiString has the same function) and its find() function

Code:

---

std::string foo = "This is a man";
std::string bar = "man";
std::string baz = "boy";

if(foo.find(bar) != std::string::npos)
  std::cout << bar << " is in the string \"" << foo << "\""
            << std::endl;
else
  std::cout << bar << " is not in the string \"" << foo << "\""
            << std::endl;
if(foo.find(baz) != std::string::npos)
  std::cout << baz << " is in the string \"" << foo << "\""
            << std::endl;
else
  std::cout << baz << " is not in the string \"" << foo << "\""
            << std::endl;

---

Either way, converting from AnsiString to String and back is a fairly simple procedure.

thank you so much sly

yup i used the method of yours but becoz we r tested on using loops
there i have to compare char instead of using the std::string class which is so obvious so much easier...

Also, if you had to maintain your AnsiString objects as are, you could perform the same operation relatively easy with the SubString() function.

Code:

---

AnsiString foo = "This is a man";
AnsiString bar = "man";

int i, found = 0;
for (i = 0; i < foo.Length() - bar.Length(); i++) {
  if (foo.SubString(i, bar.Length() == bar) {
      std::cout << bar << " is in the string \"" << foo << "\""
                << std::endl;
      found++;
  }
}
  if (found == 0)
      std::cout << bar << " is not in the string \"" << foo << "\""
                << std::endl;

---

This is provided AnsiString doesn't have a find function, which I think it might.

anyone??

still stuck at the while loop i think...
i mean how to initialise it so that it reads till the end of setence 2??

think about your count variable. what does it count up to? it should count 'til the size of the second string (or i'd even count up to the size of the second string minus the size of the first string because what good is it to search for a word starting 3 characters from the end of string two when the word you're looking for is 8 characters?) so while count is less than size of string 2 minus size of string 1, loop. see if you can make any progress from there