How to take multiple line string input in C++? - c++

I am learning C++. I want to take multiple line string as input but I can't. I am using getline() for it but it is taking only one line input. When I press enter for writing next line it stoped taking input and print the first line.
I want to give input like the example below
Hello, I am Satyajit Roy.
I want to make a program.
I love to travel.
But it takes only the first line input.
My code:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
string s;
getline(cin, s);
cout << s << endl;
return 0;
}
Please help me to know how can I do that.
Thank you.

Either you write a loop to read individual lines and concatenate them to a single string, thats what this answer suggests. If you are fine with designating a specific character to signal the end of the input, you can use the getline overload that takes a delimiter as parameter:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
int main() {
std::string s;
std::getline(std::cin,s,'x');
std::cout << s;
}
The user would have to type an x to end input, so this input
Hello, I am Satyajit Roy.
I want to make a program.
I love to travel.
x
would result in this output:
Hello, I am Satyajit Roy.
I want to make a program.
I love to travel.
Of course this won't work when the string to be entered contains x, which renders the approach rather useless.
However, instead of using a "real" character as delimiter you can use the EOF character (EOF = end of file) like this:
std::getline(std::cin, s, static_cast<char>(EOF));
Then input is terminated by whatever your terminal interprets as EOF, eg Ctrl-d in linux.
Thanks to #darcamo for enlightening me on the EOF part.

You can only read one line at a time with std::getline if you don’t provide your own delimiter. If you want to accumulate multiple lines, one at a time, you need a place to put the result. Define a second string. Read a line at a time into s with std::getline, and then append s to the result string. Like this:
std::string result;
std::string s;
while (std::getline(std::cin, s))
result += s;

You can take several lines using the code below if you know how many lines you will input.
int line=3, t;
string s, bigString;
for(int i=0 ; i<line ; i++)
{
getline(cin,s); // This is to input the sentence
bigString += s + "\n";
}
cout << bigString;
If you don't know how many lines you will input (Input from file until end of file) then you can check this.
string s;
vector<string> all;
while(getline(cin,s))
{
all.push_back(s);// This is to input the sentence
}
for(auto i:all)
{
cout << i << endl;
}

Related

Reading sentences as string inputs from users

I have been trying to implement a simple code which takes a sentence as an input from the user, stores it in a string and displays it back.
Here are the issues:
1. When T = 1, the program exits immediately.
2. When T>1, the loop runs for only T-1 times.
I think the usage of cin to store the value of T is an issue here. Is the value of T entered being stored as a string due to some buffer capacity of cin?
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
int main()
{
int T;
std::cin >> T;
while (T--)
{
std::string song;
getline(std::cin, song);
std::cout << song << std::endl;
}
return 0;
}
How do you terminate the input that becomes T? With a newline. What happens with that newline after you read into T? It's still left in the input buffer. What will happen when you next call std::getline, what is the first character it will read? The newline, and what happens next? The loop iterates and then T is zero (for the first case where T was originally 1) and the loop and then the program exits.
The solution to this problem is to ignore characters up to and including the newline.
Add a getchar after cin as the \n after the input of T stays in buffer.
std::cin >> T;
getchar();
This is a strange way to do it. So you ask the user to tell the program, before any other input, how many lines will follow? Why not simply:
std::string s;
while (getline(std::cin, s)) {
std::cout << s << std::endl;
}
(This will simply echo every line (press enter to end the line) until end-of-file (Ctrl-d).
Either way, the problem with your code is the while (T--): so why don't you try to see what your T is, and what your getline gives you on each iteration? (I will let you figure it out on your own). Why not use the idiomatic:
for (int i = 0; i < T; ++i)
?
P.S. If you want to read sentences, and not lines, you might want to consider reading up to a delimiter (for example .). getline will do that for you, too:
getline(std::cin, s, '.');

Splitting sentences and placing in vector

I was given a code from my professor that takes multiple lines of input. I am currently changing the code for our current assignment and I came across an issue. The code is meant to take strings of input and separate them into sentences from periods and put those strings into a vector.
vector<string> words;
string getInput() {
string s = ""; // string to return
bool cont = true; // loop control.. continue is true
while (cont){ // while continue
string l; // string to hold a line
cin >> l; // get line
char lastChar = l.at(l.size()-1);
if(lastChar=='.') {
l = l.substr(0, l.size()-1);
if(l.size()>0){
words.push_back(s);
s = "";
}
}
if (lastChar==';') { // use ';' to stop input
l = l.substr(0, l.size()-1);
if (l.size()>0)
s = s + " " + l;
cont = false; // set loop control to stop
}
else
s = s + " " + l; // add line to string to return
// add a blank space to prevent
// making a new word from last
// word in string and first word
// in line
}
return s;
}
int main()
{
cout << "Input something: ";
string s = getInput();
cout << "Your input: " << s << "\n" << endl;
for(int i=0; i<words.size(); i++){
cout << words[i] << "\n";
}
}
The code puts strings into a vector but takes the last word of the sentence and attaches it to the next string and I cannot seem to understand why.
This line
s = s + " " + l;
will always execute, except for the end of input, even if the last character is '.'. You are most likely missing an else between the two if-s.
You have:
string l; // string to hold a line
cin >> l; // get line
The last line does not read a line unless the entire line has non-white space characters. To read a line of text, use:
std::getline(std::cin, l);
It's hard telling whether that is tripping your code up since you haven't posted any sample input.
I would at least consider doing this job somewhat differently. Right now, you're reading a word at a time, then putting the words back together until you get to a period.
One possible alternative would be to use std::getline to read input until you get to a period, and put the whole string into the vector at once. Code to do the job this way could look something like this:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <algorithm>
#include <vector>
#include <iterator>
int main() {
std::vector<std::string> s;
std::string temp;
while (std::getline(std::cin, temp, '.'))
s.push_back(temp);
std::transform(s.begin(), s.end(),
std::ostream_iterator<std::string>(std::cout, ".\n"),
[](std::string const &s) { return s.substr(s.find_first_not_of(" \t\n")); });
}
This does behave differently in one circumstance--if you have a period somewhere other than at the end of a word, the original code will ignore that period (won't treat it as the end of a sentence) but this will. The obvious place this would make a difference would be if the input contained a number with a decimal point (e.g., 1.234), which this would break at the decimal point, so it would treat the 1 as the end of one sentence, and the 234 as the beginning of another. If, however, you don't need to deal with that type of input, this can simplify the code considerably.
If the sentences might contain decimal points, then I'd probably write the code more like this:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <algorithm>
#include <vector>
#include <iterator>
class sentence {
std::string data;
public:
friend std::istream &operator>>(std::istream &is, sentence &s) {
std::string temp, word;
while (is >> word) {
temp += word + ' ';
if (word.back() == '.')
break;
}
s.data = temp;
return is;
}
operator std::string() const { return data; }
};
int main() {
std::copy(std::istream_iterator<sentence>(std::cin),
std::istream_iterator<sentence>(),
std::ostream_iterator<std::string>(std::cout, "\n"));
}
Although somewhat longer and more complex, at least to me it still seems (considerably) simpler than the code in the question. I guess it's different in one way--it detects the end of the input by...detecting the end of the input, rather than depending on the input to contain a special delimiter to mark the end of the input. If you're running it interactively, you'll typically need to use a special key combination to signal the end of input (e.g., Ctrl+D on Linux/Unix, or F6 on Windows).
In any case, it's probably worth considering a fundamental difference between this code and the code in the question: this defines a sentence as a type, where the original code just leaves everything as strings, and manipulates strings. This defines an operator>> for a sentence, that reads a sentence from a stream as we want it read. This gives us a type we can manipulate as an object. Since it's like a string in other ways, we provide a conversion to string so once you're done reading one from a stream, you can just treat it as a string. Having done that, we can (for example) use a standard algorithm to read sentences from standard input, and write them to standard output, with a new-line after each to separate them.

Getting input from file troubles C++

I've been trying to read some information in from a .txt file in C++ but it's not all working like I expect. Here is some example code:
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
char words[255];
int value = 0;
ifstream input_stream("test.txt");
input_stream >> value;
input_stream.getline(words, 256);
cout << value << endl;
cout << words << endl;
}
And test.txt contains:
1234
WordOne WordTwo
What I expect is for the code to print the two lines contained in the text file, but instead I just get:
1234
I've been reading about getline and istream but can't seem to find any solutions so any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
The newline character remains in the input stream after the read of the integer:
// Always check result to ensure variables correctly assigned a value.
if (input_stream >> value)
{
}
Then, the call to getline() reads the newline character and stops, producing an empty string. To correct, consume the newline character before calling getline() (options include using getline() or ignore()).
Note there is a version std::getline() that accepts a std::string as its argument to avoid using a fixed sized array of char, which is used incorrectly in the posted code.
ifstream's getline method gathers input until one of two options is hit. Either a terminating character or the size passed in is reached. In your case, the newline terminator is encountered before the size is reached.
Use another getline to retrieve the second line of text.
Reference
The problem you are seeing is that the first newline after 1234 is not consumed by input_stream>>(int); so the next getline only reads to the end of that file.
This is a very constructed scenario, commonly found in schoolwork. The more common scenario when reading a textfile is to consider the entire file as linebased text.
In this case the more convenient
string line;
while( std::getline( input_stream, line ) ){
}
is appropriate, and way less error prone.
The textfile would commonly have a predefined format. Perhaps name = value lines, and are parsed as such after the line is read from the file.
Here is a somewhat corrected version of your original code:
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
char words[256]; // was 255
int value = 0;
ifstream input_stream("test.txt");
input_stream >> value;
input_stream.ignore(); // skip '\n'
input_stream.getline(words, 256);
cout << value << endl;
cout << words << endl;
}
Also, I would advise you to use a string instead of a char[] and use the other getline function.

first string in array of strings is being skipped

Somehow when I run this code and it comes to inputting strings, the first string where i=0 is being skipped and it starts entering strings from A[1]. So I end up with A[0] filled with random stuff from memory. Can someone please point at the problem?
cin>>s;
char** A;
A = new char *[s];
cout<<"now please fill the strings"<<endl;
for (int i=0;i<s;i++)
{
A[i] = new char[100];
cout<<"string "<<i<<": ";
gets(A[i]);
}
That code is horrible. Here's how it should look like in real C++:
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
int main()
{
std::cout << "Please start entering lines. A blank line or "
<< "EOF (Ctrl-D) will terminate the input.\n";
std::vector<std::string> lines;
for (std::string line; std::getline(std::cin, line) && !line.empty(); )
{
lines.push_back(line);
}
std::cout << "Thank you, goodbye.\n";
}
Note the absence of any pointers or new expressions.
If you like you can add a little prompt print by adding std::cout << "> " && at the beginning of the conditional check in the for loop.
Probably because you're using gets()... never use gets()
Use fgets() instead.
gets vs fgets
The problem is that cin>>s; just picks up the number you want and leaves a \n (newline from the enter press) on stdin that gets() picks up in the first iteration. This is not the nicest way to fix it, but to prove it write this line after that line:
int a = fgetc(stdin);
Check out a afterwards to confirm it has a newline.
Well, you probably get an empty string: when reading s you use formatted input which stops as soon as a non-digit is encountered, e.g., the newline used to indicate its input is finished. gets(), thus, immediately finds a newline, terminating the first string read.
That said, you shall never use gets(): It is a primary security problem and the root cause of many potential attack! You should, instead, use fgets() or, better, yet, std::getline() together with std::strings and a std::vector<std::string> >. Aslo, you should always verify that the attempt to input was successful:
if ((std::cin >> s).ignore(std::numeric_limits<std::streamsize>::max(), `\n`)) {
std::string line;
for (int i(0); i != s && std::getline(std::cin, line); ) {
A.push_back(line);
}
}

Why is cin.getline() skipping the first word in each line?

I am trying to display the text of a command line inputted text file line by line. But for some reason, it skips the first word in each line after the first line.
code:
using std::cout;
using std::cin;
using std::endl;
int main (int args, char* argv[])
{
char x[100];
char y[100];
char z[100];
cin.getline(x,100) >> argv[2];
cin.getline(y,100) >> argv[2];
cin.getline(z,100) >> argv[2];
cout << x <<endl;
cout << y <<endl;
cout << z <<endl;
return 1;
}
running ./a.out < moby.txt
displays this:
CHAPTER 1. Loomings.
me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having
or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on
but the first three lines in moby.txt is this:
CHAPTER 1. Loomings.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having
little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on
The code is omitting "Call" and "little".
I feel like this is an \n error but i have no idea how to fix it.
Thanks in advance for any help.
cin.getline(x,100) >> argv[2];
You read a line (or the first 99 characters of the line) into x. Then you skip any whitespace and read the next word into argv[2]. The first words are ending up there.
Why are you using >> argv[2]? What are you possibly trying to do with this? argv[2] may not exist and even if it does, you don't have any control over the size of the character array pointed to by argv[2], so your chances of overrunning that array are quite high.
Rather than using char arrays directly for this, use std::getline with std::string to read lines into std::string objects: it is much easier to write correct code this way. For example,
std::string x;
if (!std::getline(std::cin, x)) {
// handle input error
}
#James McNellis has already pointed to the basic problem. My advice would be:
Don't use the member-function form of getline.
Don't mix getline and >> in the same statement.
Use a loop.
I find the other C++ getline to be easier and safer to use;
string str;
getline (cin,str);
will slurp the entire line and put it into a string, which you can then play with via the many fine string methods, or stringstream if you want to do I/O on parts of the string.
This is what I chose to do to make sure I am not missing any words or letters when I Use getline:
cout << "\nEnter some words: ";
while (getline(cin,myString)){
getline(cin,myString);
break;
};