Reading characters from a string?

Okay, I feel really stupid, but I cannot seem to get this down pat. Last assigment I turned in incomplete because of the same issue, but for whatever reason, I cannot seem to figure out how to read one character at at time and then output the conversion to a string.

This is what this program is supposed to do. The user is supposed to enter a word and the program is supposed to send out the Phonetic. EG: Type in Rose and you should get: Romeo Oscar Sierra Echo as the output. But everytime I run this program, I get 'invalid data' outputting endlessly.

Here is my code. Can you guys help?

Code:

#include <iostream> #include <string> #include <cctype> using namespace std; void getPhonetic(char&, string&, string&); int main() { char readChar; string insertString; string outputString; getPhonetic(readChar, insertString, outputString); cin.ignore(); cin.get(); return 1; } void getPhonetic(char& readChar, string& insertString, string& outputString) { cout << "Please type in a word to convert: \n"; cin >> insertString; cin.get(readChar); readChar = tolower(readChar); while (readChar != '/n') switch(readChar) { case 'a': cout << "Alpha"; break; case 'b': cout << "Bravo"; break; case 'c': cout << "Charlie"; break; case 'd': cout << "Delta"; break; case 'e': cout << "Echo"; break; case 'f': cout << "Foxtrot"; break; case 'g': cout << "Golf"; break; case 'h': cout << "Hotel"; break; case 'i': cout << "India"; break; case 'j': cout << "Juliet"; break; case 'k': cout << "Kilo"; break; case 'l': cout << "Lima"; break; case 'm': cout << "Mike"; break; case 'n': cout << "November"; break; case 'o': cout << "Oscar"; break; case 'p': cout << "Papa"; break; case 'q': cout << "Quebec"; break; case 'r': cout << "Romeo"; break; case 's': cout << "Sierra"; break; case 't': cout << "Tango"; break; case 'u': cout << "Uniform"; break; case 'v': cout << "Victor"; break; case 'w': cout << "Whiskey"; break; case 'x': cout << "X=ray"; break; case 'y': cout << "Yankee"; break; case 'z': cout << "Zulu"; break; default: cout << "Invalid symbol"; break; } outputString = outputString + " " + readChar; readChar++; cout << outputString; }

And would it be easier to use "int", except I'm not sure how...OMG! I am SO stuck! LOL!

I don't suppose this might help any?

Code:

void getPhonetic(char& readChar, string& insertString, string& outputString) { cout << "Please type in a word to convert: \n"; cin >> insertString; for ( int i = 0; insertString[i]; ++i ) { readChar = tolower(insertString[i]); switch ( readChar ) { case 'a': outputString += "Alpha "; break; case 'b': outputString += "Bravo "; break; case 'c': outputString += "Charlie "; break; case 'd': outputString += "Delta "; break; case 'e': outputString += "Echo "; break; case 'f': outputString += "Foxtrot "; break; case 'g': outputString += "Golf "; break; case 'h': outputString += "Hotel "; break; case 'i': outputString += "India "; break; case 'j': outputString += "Juliet "; break; case 'k': outputString += "Kilo "; break; case 'l': outputString += "Lima "; break; case 'm': outputString += "Mike "; break; case 'n': outputString += "November "; break; case 'o': outputString += "Oscar "; break; case 'p': outputString += "Papa "; break; case 'q': outputString += "Quebec "; break; case 'r': outputString += "Romeo "; break; case 's': outputString += "Sierra "; break; case 't': outputString += "Tango "; break; case 'u': outputString += "Uniform "; break; case 'v': outputString += "Victor "; break; case 'w': outputString += "Whiskey "; break; case 'x': outputString += "X=ray "; break; case 'y': outputString += "Yankee "; break; case 'z': outputString += "Zulu "; break; default: cout << "Invalid symbol"; break; } } cout << outputString; }

Thank you! Thank you again! And even THANKS SO MUCH!!!

Obviously, I was on the right track with the "int" usage, but could you explain to me how I can use "int i" when it's not even declared anywhere? I actually WANT to learn this...

I actually wouldn't mind the full explanation, since this has given me so much trouble.

Thanks yet again!
Rose

Quote:

but could you explain to me how I can use "int i" when it's not even declared anywhere?

'int i' is a declaration.

Code:

cout << "Please type in a word to convert: \n"; cin >> insertString;

cin >> is programmed to read data until it encounters a whitespace character(space, tab, newline), and then it stops reading data. The very next line in your code is:

Code:

cin.get(readChar);

That says to read the next char and put it into the char variable readChar. Since cin>> stops reading when it encounters a whitespace character, the next char will be a whitespace character, and therfore readChar will be a whitespace character. You asked the user to type in 'a word', so it is likely that the user typed in a word and then hit enter. When the user hits enter, that inserts a '\n' character into the input, like this:

dog\n

So cin>> reads in 'dog' and then stops at the whitespace character '\n'. Next, cin.get(readChar) puts the '\n' character in the variable readChar.

Thereafter, you do this:

Code:

readChar = tolower(readChar);

which because readChar is not an uppercase character does nothing to readChar.

Then comes your while loop:

Code:

while (readChar != '/n')

Since readChar = '\n' it does not equal '/n', and the while loop executes. In the switch() none of the cases are a '\n' character so the default case is executed:

Code:

default: cout << "Invalid symbol"; break; }

which outputs "Invalid symbol". Then, you add the '\n' character(which remember is a carriage return) to outputString:

Code:

outputString = outputString + " " + readChar;

Then you increment readChar:

Code:

readChar++;

which gives readChar the next highest value in an ascii table of character codes. If you look at an ascii table, a carriage return character is represented by the numeric code 10. Computers are dumb; they can't store characters--they can only store numbers. So to store a character, a computer stores it's numeric ascii code.

As an exercise, look at an ascii table in the back of your C++ book or online and post what the numeric code is for the letter 'a'. That integer gets stored in a char variable when you do this:

Code:

char ch = 'a';

However, when you try to display the char variable ch, instead of displaying the numeric code stored in the variable, C++ automatically converts the numeric code to the letter 'a' and displays that instead.

Anyway, readChar++ results in a numeric code of 11 being stored in readChar, which my ascii table says is the numeric code for a vertical line feed character. In any case, your while loop continues forever because incrementing readChar++ never gives it a numeric code that is equal to the numeric code for '/n'(which doesn't exist).

The main problem with your code is this line:

Quote:

cin.get(readChar);

That says to get a char from cin--where cin is the input from the keyboard. What you want to do is get a char from the word you read into your string variable:

Code:

void getPhonetic(char& readChar, string& insertString, string& outputString) { cout << "Please type in a word to convert: \n"; cin >> insertString;

You can access the first char in the string using insertString[0], the second character using insertString[1], etc. So a for loop is a good way to step through every character in the string using insertString[i]:

Code:

for(int i = 0; i < insertString.length(); i++) { //do something with insertString[i] }

Thanks 7Stud...that is VERY helpful. And I actually understood it. Yay!

Thanks again! You taught me something today!