cin not accepting user input in C++ - c++

Question

I'm a beginner in programming, and I'm trying to make a program that calculated how much radiation you've been exposed to throughout your life. For some reason, the 'cin' in my xray function doesn't accept user input, and just exits with code 0.
#include <iostream>
#include <conio.h>
#include <windows.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>
using namespace std;
bool nearpowerplant;
int XRay; // the amount of times you got an x-ray
double tRads = 0; // your total dose of radiation in your lifetime, measured in mSv (millisievert)
int age;
//the sleep function
void sleep() {
Sleep(1000); // 1000 miliseconds = 1 second
}
/*
>system("CLS")< for clear the console
*/
//introduction and pretty much the menu
void intro() {
cout << "Welcome to the Radiation Level Calculator" << endl;
sleep();
cout << "Conceptualized and created by Anatoly Zavyalov" << endl;
sleep();
cout << "Press the ENTER key to begin." << endl;
cin.get();
}
//introduction to general questions
void genintro() {
// intro to the medical
system("CLS");
sleep();
cout << "Let's begin with general questions." << endl;
sleep();
cout << "Press the ENTER key to continue." << endl;
cin.get();
}
//medical questions
void Age() {
//age
system("CLS");
cout << "How old are you?\n" << endl;
sleep();
cin >> age;
if (age <= 0) {
cout << "Your age can't be less or equal to 0." << endl;
Age();
}
else {
tRads += (age * 2);
sleep();
cout << tRads << endl;
}
}
//live close to powerplant?
void powerplant() {
system("CLS");
cout << "Do you live within 75 kilometers of a nuclear powerplant?" << endl;
sleep();
cout << "If yes, type YES. If no, type NO." << endl;
cin >> nearpowerplant;
if (nearpowerplant = "YES") {
tRads += (age * 0.01);
}
else {}
sleep();
cout << tRads << endl;
}
void xray() {
system("CLS");
cout << "How many times have you had an x-ray?\n" << endl;
sleep();
cin >> XRay;
if (XRay < 0) {
cout << "You can't have an x-ray a negative amount of times." << endl;
}
else {
tRads += (XRay * 3.1);
}
sleep();
cout << tRads << endl;
}
//main function, put all of the loops into here
int main() {
intro(); // the introduction
genintro(); // medical intro
Age(); // asks for age
powerplant(); // asks if lives close to powerplant
xray(); // asks for x-ray
return 0;
}
EDIT: I have edited the post to include the whole code. By the way, I am using Visual Studio Community 2017.

Answer 1

bool nearpowerplant;
nearpowerplant is a bool. It is true or false. That is it. It's worth noting that there is no reason for this variable to be globally accessible and consuming storage for the entire run of the program. It is used twice in the program, both times in the same function. It should be an Automatic variable scoped by the function that uses it.
cout << "If yes, type YES. If no, type NO." << endl;
cin >> nearpowerplant;
Reading "YES" or "NO" into a variable of type bool fails. cin cannot convert the string input into a boolean value and cin stops accepting input until the error is cleared. It's also a good idea to remove the garbage input that caused cin to fail or guess what? cin's just going to fail again. There are hundreds of SO questions on how to handle this, so I'm just going to drop keywords here: clear and ignore.
Takeaways: Make sure the data entry matches the type of the data being entered into and test the stream after every read to make sure the read succeeded.
eg:
if (cin >> nearpowerplant)
{
// do stuff
}
else
{
// clean up
}
This solves OP's visible error, but since it is heavily entwined with the next bug they are likely to find, we might as well cover it as well.
if (nearpowerplant = "YES") {
tRads += (age * 0.01);
}
else {}
if (nearpowerplant = "YES") { uses = (assignment) where it should use == (comparison). C++ is unforgiving here because this will compile. What it really did was takes the address of the string literal "YES", test that it's not null, and set nearpowerplant to the result. Since the address of the string literal is never going to be NULL, the result is always true, and when the if tests the result, the if will always enter.
Eg: http://ideone.com/4QL2jn
So what we need is something more like
cout << "If yes, type YES. If no, type NO." << endl;
string temp;
cin >> temp;
if (temp == "YES") {
tRads += (age * 0.01);
}
else {}
Note this will skip if the user inputs "yes", "y", "Yes" or anything other than exactly "YES". How you deal with this is up to you, but std::tolower and std::transform may help somewhat.

Answer 2

I think with sleep() comes undefined behavior, you should test it without, the os handles user-input and you do not have to care about the user typing in. endl flushes cout, so the text is directly shown.
Edit:
Maybe system("CLS") or sleep produces a silent error.