How to use Arrays, with Strings - c++

I'm a C++ programmer, who's still in the nest, and not yet found my wings. I was writing a Calendar program, and I discovered, that C++ does not support a string type. How do I make an Array, that will be able to store strings of characters?
I've thought of creating an enumerated data type, as the array type. While, it will work, for my Calendar, it won't work if say I was creating a database of the names of students in my class.
http://prntscr.com/7m074w I got; "error, 'string' does not name a type."

that C++ does not support a string type.
Wrong info, you can create an character array as follows
char array[length];
//Where length should be a constant integer
Otherwise you can depend on standard template library container, std::string
If you have C++11 compiler you can depend on std::array

The C++ Standard Library includes a string type, std::string. See http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/string/basic_string
The Standard Library also provides a fixed-size array type, std::array. See http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/container/array
But you may also want to learn about the dynamically-sized array type, std::vector. See http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/container/vector
The language also includes legacy support for c-strings and c-arrays, which you can find in a good C++ or C book. See The Definitive C++ Book Guide and List
An example of how to use an array/vector of strings:
#include <string>
#include <array>
#include <vector>
#include <iostream>
int main() {
std::array<std::string, 3> stringarray;
stringarray[0] = "hello";
stringarray[1] = "world";
// stringarray[2] contains an empty string.
for (size_t i = 0; i < stringarray.size(); ++i) {
std::cout << "stringarray[" << i << "] = " << stringarray[i] << "\n";
}
// Using a vector, which has a variable size.
std::vector<std::string> stringvec;
stringvec.push_back("world");
stringvec.insert(stringvec.begin(), "hello");
stringvec.push_back("greetings");
stringvec.push_back("little bird");
std::cout << "size " << stringvec.size()
<< "capacity " << stringvec.capacity()
<< "empty? " << (stringvec.empty() ? "yes" : "no")
<< "\n";
// remove the last element
stringvec.pop_back();
std::cout << "size " << stringvec.size()
<< "capacity " << stringvec.capacity()
<< "empty? " << (stringvec.empty() ? "yes" : "no")
<< "\n";
std::cout << "stringvec: ";
for (auto& str : stringvec) {
std::cout << "'" << str << "' ";
}
std::cout << "\n";
// iterators and string concatenation
std::string greeting = "";
for (auto it = stringvec.begin(); it != stringvec.end(); ++it) {
if (!greeting.empty()) // add a space between words
greeting += ' ';
greeting += *it;
}
std::cout << "stringvec combined :- " << greeting << "\n";
}
Live demo: http://ideone.com/LWYevW

You can create an array of characters by char name[length];.
C++ also has a data type string. You can create an array of strings and store what values you'd like. here .
So
use array of characters
use string data type
For Example -
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
int main ()
{
//To Create a String
std::string s0 ("Initial string");
return 0;
}

C++ does have a string type: string from #include <string>
If you don't want to use that, you can also use char* name = "YourTextHere..." or `char[length+1] name = "YourTextHere"

Related

line.find won't compile, line is not declared

I am a very novice programmer, and I am trying to understand the find functions for strings. At uni we are told to use c-strings, which is why I think that it isn't working. The problem comes when I compile, there is a compile error that line was not declared. This is my code:
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <cstring>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
char test[256];
char ID[256];
cout << "\nenter ID: ";
cin.getline(ID, 256);
int index = line.find(ID);
cout << index << endl;
return 0;
}
Please help, it has become really frustrating as I need to understand this function to complete my assignment :/
You're trying to use C-style strings. But find is a member of the C++ string class. If you want to use C-style strings, use functions that operate on C style strings like strcmp, strchr, strstr, and so on.
Supposing you actually input some data into test also, then one way to do it would be:
char *found = strstr(test, ID);
if ( !found )
cout << "The ID was not found.\n";
else
cout << "The index was " << (found - test) << '\n';
Because find fuction a member function string class,You should declare a string class's object. I think you will do that like this:
string test = "This is test string";
string::size_type position;
position = test.find(ID);
if (position != test.npos){
cout << "Found: " << position << endl;
}
else{
cout << "not found ID << endl;
}

Concatenation operator in C++?

I have an application in which I need to combine strings within a variable like so:
int int_arr[4];
int_arr[1] = 123;
int_arr[2] = 456;
int_arr[3] = 789;
int_arr[4] = 10;
std::string _string = "Text " + int_arr[1] + " Text " + int_arr[2] + " Text " + int_arr[3] + " Text " + int_arr[4];
It gives me the compile error
Error C2210: '+' Operator cannot add pointers" on the second string of the expression.
As far as I can tell I am combining string literals and integers, not pointers.
Is there another concatenation operator that I should be using? Or is the expression just completely wrong and should figure out another way to implement this?
BTW I am using Visual Studio 2010
Neither C nor C++ allow concatenation of const char * and int. Even C++'s std::string, doesn't concatenate integers. Use streams instead:
std::stringstream ss;
ss << "Text " << int_arr[1] << " Text " << int_arr[2] << " Text " << int_arr[3] << " Text " << int_arr[4];
std::string _string = ss.str();
You can do this in Java since it uses the toString() method automatically on each part.
If you want to do it the same way in C++, you'll have to explicitly convert those integer to strings in order for this to work.
Something like:
#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>
std::string intToStr (int i) {
std::ostringstream s;
s << i;
return s.str();
}
int main (void) {
int var = 7;
std::string s = "Var is '" + intToStr(var) + "'";
std::cout << s << std::endl;
return 0;
}
Of course, you can just use:
std::ostringstream os;
os << "Var is '" << var << "'";
std::string s = os.str();
which is a lot easier.
A string literal becomes a pointer in this context. Not a std::string. (Well, to be pedantically correct, string literals are character arrays, but the name of an array has an implicit conversion to a pointer. One predefined form of the + operator takes a pointer left-argument and an integral right argument, which is the best match, so the implicit conversion takes place here. No user-defined conversion can ever take precedence over this built-in conversion, according to the C++ overloading rules.).
You should study a good C++ book, we have a list here on SO.
A string literal is an expression returning a pointer const char*.
std::stringstream _string_stream;
_string_stream << "Text " << int_arr[1] << " Text " << int_arr[2] << " Text " << int_arr[3] << " Text " << int_arr[4];
std::string _string = _string_stream.str();

Why setting null in the middle of std string doesn't have any effect

Consider
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
/*
hello
5
hel
3
*/
char a[] = "hello";
std::cout << a << std::endl;
std::cout << strlen(a) << std::endl;
a[3] = 0;
std::cout << a << std::endl;
std::cout << strlen(a) << std::endl;
/*
hello
5
hel o
5
*/
std::string b = "hello";
std::cout << b << std::endl;
std::cout << b.length() << std::endl;
b[3] = 0;
std::cout << b << std::endl;
std::cout << b.length() << std::endl;
getchar();
}
I expect std::string will behave identical to char array a. That's it, insert null character in the middle of the string, will "terminate" the string. However, it is not the case. Is my expectation wrong?
A std::string is not like a usual C string, and can contain embedded NUL characters without problems. However, if you do this you will notice the string is prematurely terminated if you use the .c_str() function to return a const char *.
No - std::strings are not NUL-terminated like C "strings"; the std::string records its length independently.
#Lou is right: don't do that. Instead, do this:
b.erase (3, b.length());
Yes, your expectation is wrong. std::string is meant to be different from C strings (e.g. not necessarily stored in consecutive memory / an array).
To duplicate the first section's behavior, try std::cout << b.c_str() instead of std::cout << b.
I expect std::string will behave identical to char array a.
Why? Nothing in the documentation, anywhere, having to do with std::string says it does this.
My suggestion, stop treating like C++ as C plus some stuff.

Comparing Character Literal to Std::String in C++

I would like to compare a character literal with the first element of string, to check for comments in a file. Why use a char? I want to make this into a function, which accepts a character var for the comment. I don't want to allow a string because I want to limit it to a single character in length.
With that in mind I assumed the easy way to go would be to address the character and pass it to the std::string's compare function. However this is giving me unintended results.
My code is as follows:
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
int main ( int argc, char *argv[] )
{
std::string my_string = "bob";
char my_char1 = 'a';
char my_char2 = 'b';
std::cout << "STRING : " << my_string.substr(0,1) << std::endl
<< "CHAR : " << my_char1 << std::endl;
if (my_string.substr(0,1).compare(&my_char1)==0)
std::cout << "WOW!" << std::endl;
else
std::cout << "NOPE..." << std::endl;
std::cout << "STRING : " << my_string.substr(0,1) << std::endl
<< "CHAR : " << my_char2 << std::endl;
if (my_string.substr(0,1).compare(&my_char2)==0)
std::cout << "WOW!" << std::endl;
else
std::cout << "NOPE..." << std::endl;
std::cout << "STRING : " << my_string << std::endl
<< "STRING 2 : " << "bob" << std::endl;
if (my_string.compare("bob")==0)
std::cout << "WOW!" << std::endl;
else
std::cout << "NOPE..." << std::endl;
}
Gives me...
STRING : b
CHAR : a
NOPE...
STRING : b
CHAR : b
NOPE...
STRING : bob
STRING 2 : bob
WOW!
Why does the function think the sub-string and character aren't the same. What's the shortest way to properly compare chars and std::string vars?
(a short rant to avoid reclassification of my question.... feel free to skip)
When I say shortest I mean that out of a desire for coding eloquence. Please note, this is NOT a homework question. I am a chemical engineering Ph.D candidate and am coding as part of independent research. One of my last questions was reclassified as "homework" by user msw (who also made a snide remark) when I asked about efficiency, which I considered on the border of abuse. My code may or may not be reused by others, but I'm trying to make it easy to read and maintainable. I also have a bizarre desire to make my code as efficient as possible where possible. Hence the questions on efficiency and eloquence.
Doing this:
if (my_string.substr(0,1).compare(&my_char2)==0)
Won't work because you're "tricking" the string into thinking it's getting a pointer to a null-terminated C-string. This will have weird effects up to and including crashing your program. Instead, just use normal equality to compare the first character of the string with my_char:
if (my_string[0] == my_char)
// do stuff
Why not just use the indexing operator on your string? It will return a char type.
if (my_string[0] == my_char1)
You can use the operator[] of string to compare it to a single char
// string::operator[]
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
string str ("Test string");
int i; char c = 't';
for (i=0; i < str.length(); i++)
{
if (c == str[i]) {
std::cout << "Equal at position i = " << i << std::endl;
}
}
return 0;
}
The behaviour of the first two calls to compare is entirely dependent on what random memory contents follows the address of each char. You are calling basic_string::compare(const char*) and the param here is assumed to be a C-String (null-terminated), not a single char. The compare() call will compare your desired char, followed by everything in memory after that char up to the next 0x00 byte, with the std::string in hand.
Otoh the << operator does have a proper overload for char input so your output does not reflect what you are actually comparing here.
Convert the decls of and b to be const char[] a = "a"; and you will get what you want to happen.
Pretty standard, strings in c++ are null-terminated; characters are not. So by using the standard compare method you're really checking if "b\0" == 'b'.
I used this and got the desired output:
if (my_string.substr(0,1).compare( 0, 1, &my_char2, 1)==0 )
std::cout << "WOW!" << std::endl;
else
std::cout << "NOPE..." << std::endl;
What this is saying is start at position 0 of the substring, use a length of 1, and compare it to my character reference with a length of 1. Reference

How do you append an int to a string in C++? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How to concatenate a std::string and an int
(25 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
int i = 4;
string text = "Player ";
cout << (text + i);
I'd like it to print Player 4.
The above is obviously wrong but it shows what I'm trying to do here. Is there an easy way to do this or do I have to start adding new includes?
With C++11, you can write:
#include <string> // to use std::string, std::to_string() and "+" operator acting on strings
int i = 4;
std::string text = "Player ";
text += std::to_string(i);
Well, if you use cout you can just write the integer directly to it, as in
std::cout << text << i;
The C++ way of converting all kinds of objects to strings is through string streams. If you don't have one handy, just create one.
#include <sstream>
std::ostringstream oss;
oss << text << i;
std::cout << oss.str();
Alternatively, you can just convert the integer and append it to the string.
oss << i;
text += oss.str();
Finally, the Boost libraries provide boost::lexical_cast, which wraps around the stringstream conversion with a syntax like the built-in type casts.
#include <boost/lexical_cast.hpp>
text += boost::lexical_cast<std::string>(i);
This also works the other way around, i.e. to parse strings.
printf("Player %d", i);
(Downvote my answer all you like; I still hate the C++ I/O operators.)
:-P
These work for general strings (in case you do not want to output to file/console, but store for later use or something).
boost.lexical_cast
MyStr += boost::lexical_cast<std::string>(MyInt);
String streams
//sstream.h
std::stringstream Stream;
Stream.str(MyStr);
Stream << MyInt;
MyStr = Stream.str();
// If you're using a stream (for example, cout), rather than std::string
someStream << MyInt;
For the record, you can also use a std::stringstream if you want to create the string before it's actually output.
cout << text << " " << i << endl;
Your example seems to indicate that you would like to display the a string followed by an integer, in which case:
string text = "Player: ";
int i = 4;
cout << text << i << endl;
would work fine.
But, if you're going to be storing the string places or passing it around, and doing this frequently, you may benefit from overloading the addition operator. I demonstrate this below:
#include <sstream>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
std::string operator+(std::string const &a, int b) {
std::ostringstream oss;
oss << a << b;
return oss.str();
}
int main() {
int i = 4;
string text = "Player: ";
cout << (text + i) << endl;
}
In fact, you can use templates to make this approach more powerful:
template <class T>
std::string operator+(std::string const &a, const T &b){
std::ostringstream oss;
oss << a << b;
return oss.str();
}
Now, as long as object b has a defined stream output, you can append it to your string (or, at least, a copy thereof).
Another possibility is Boost.Format:
#include <boost/format.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
int main() {
int i = 4;
std::string text = "Player";
std::cout << boost::format("%1% %2%\n") % text % i;
}
Here a small working conversion/appending example, with some code I needed before.
#include <string>
#include <sstream>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main(){
string str;
int i = 321;
std::stringstream ss;
ss << 123;
str = "/dev/video";
cout << str << endl;
cout << str << 456 << endl;
cout << str << i << endl;
str += ss.str();
cout << str << endl;
}
the output will be:
/dev/video
/dev/video456
/dev/video321
/dev/video123
Note that in the last two lines you save the modified string before it's actually printed out, and you could use it later if needed.
For the record, you could also use Qt's QString class:
#include <QtCore/QString>
int i = 4;
QString qs = QString("Player %1").arg(i);
std::cout << qs.toLocal8bit().constData(); // prints "Player 4"
cout << text << i;
One method here is directly printing the output if its required in your problem.
cout << text << i;
Else, one of the safest method is to use
sprintf(count, "%d", i);
And then copy it to your "text" string .
for(k = 0; *(count + k); k++)
{
text += count[k];
}
Thus, you have your required output string
For more info on sprintf, follow:
http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/cstdio/sprintf
cout << text << i;
The << operator for ostream returns a reference to the ostream, so you can just keep chaining the << operations. That is, the above is basically the same as:
cout << text;
cout << i;
cout << "Player" << i ;
cout << text << " " << i << endl;
The easiest way I could figure this out is the following..
It will work as a single string and string array.
I am considering a string array, as it is complicated (little bit same will be followed with string).
I create a array of names and append some integer and char with it to show how easy it is to append some int and chars to string, hope it helps.
length is just to measure the size of array. If you are familiar with programming then size_t is a unsigned int
#include<iostream>
#include<string>
using namespace std;
int main() {
string names[] = { "amz","Waq","Mon","Sam","Has","Shak","GBy" }; //simple array
int length = sizeof(names) / sizeof(names[0]); //give you size of array
int id;
string append[7]; //as length is 7 just for sake of storing and printing output
for (size_t i = 0; i < length; i++) {
id = rand() % 20000 + 2;
append[i] = names[i] + to_string(id);
}
for (size_t i = 0; i < length; i++) {
cout << append[i] << endl;
}
}
There are a few options, and which one you want depends on the context.
The simplest way is
std::cout << text << i;
or if you want this on a single line
std::cout << text << i << endl;
If you are writing a single threaded program and if you aren't calling this code a lot (where "a lot" is thousands of times per second) then you are done.
If you are writing a multi threaded program and more than one thread is writing to cout, then this simple code can get you into trouble. Let's assume that the library that came with your compiler made cout thread safe enough than any single call to it won't be interrupted. Now let's say that one thread is using this code to write "Player 1" and another is writing "Player 2". If you are lucky you will get the following:
Player 1
Player 2
If you are unlucky you might get something like the following
Player Player 2
1
The problem is that std::cout << text << i << endl; turns into 3 function calls. The code is equivalent to the following:
std::cout << text;
std::cout << i;
std::cout << endl;
If instead you used the C-style printf, and again your compiler provided a runtime library with reasonable thread safety (each function call is atomic) then the following code would work better:
printf("Player %d\n", i);
Being able to do something in a single function call lets the io library provide synchronization under the covers, and now your whole line of text will be atomically written.
For simple programs, std::cout is great. Throw in multithreading or other complications and the less stylish printf starts to look more attractive.
You also try concatenate player's number with std::string::push_back :
Example with your code:
int i = 4;
string text = "Player ";
text.push_back(i + '0');
cout << text;
You will see in console:
Player 4
You can use the following
int i = 4;
string text = "Player ";
text+=(i+'0');
cout << (text);
If using Windows/MFC, and need the string for more than immediate output try:
int i = 4;
CString strOutput;
strOutput.Format("Player %d", i);