Can you use "cin" with string? - c++

Question

I was taught that you have to use gets(str) to input a string and not cin. However I can use cin just fine in the program below. Can someone tell me if you can use cin or not. Sorry for my bad English. The program lets you insert 5 names and then print those names to the screen.
Here's the code:
#include <iostream>
#include <string.h>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
char **p = new char *[5];
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
{
*(p + i) = new char[255];
} //make a 2 dimensional array of strings
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
{
char n[255] = "";
cout << "insert names: ";
cin >> n; //how i can use cin here to insert the string to an array??
strcpy(p[i], n);
}
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
{
cout << p[i] << endl; //print the names
}
}

Answer 1

You can indeed use something like
std::string name;
std::cin >> name;
but the reading from the stream will stop on the first white space, so a name of the form "Bathsheba Everdene" will stop just after "Bathsheba".
An alternative is
std::string name;
std::getline(std::cin, name);
which will read the whole line.
This has advantages over using a char[] buffer, as you don't need to worry about the size of the buffer, and the std::string will take care of all the memory management for you.

Answer 2

Use ws (whitespace) in getline() like getline(cin>>ws, name);
If numeric input is before the string then due to whitespace the first string input will be ignored. Therefore use ws like getline(cin>>ws, name);
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
main(){
int id=0;
string name, address;
cout <<"Id? "; cin>>id;
cout <<"Name? ";
getline(cin>>ws, name);
cout <<"Address? ";
getline(cin>>ws, address);
cout <<"\nName: " <<name <<"\nAddress: " <<address;
}