Displaying gibberish and missing operations - c++

Question

so I am beginner to C++ and I am trying to make a Class that contains functions for getting Data, calculating average sum and dividing them by how much grades there are(5) and the final function is for displaying the data about the student.Here's what I get in the console : Click for image
I would be happy to get some advice from you guys.
Here is the code :
class Students{
int br;
char Name[30];
int fakn,i;
float grades[5],sum;
char spec[25];
public:
void takingdata();
float avarage();
void displaydata();
};
void Students::takingdata(){
cout << "Enter name of the student: "; cin.getline(Name, 20);
cout << "Enter his faculty number: "; cin >> fakn;
cout << "specialty: "; cin.getline(spec, 10);
cout << "Enter grades : ";
for (i = 0; i < 5; i++){
cout << "Enter his grades(5 classes): "; cin >> grades[i];
}
}
float Students::avarage(){
sum = 0;
br = 0;
for (i = 0; i < 5; i++){
sum = sum + grades[i];
}
return sum / 5;
}
void Students::displaydata(){
cout << "Name of student: " << Name;
cout << "Student faculty number: " << fakn;
cout << "Student specialty: " << spec;
for (i = 0; i < 5; i++){
cout << "His " << i << " grade: " << grades[i];
}
cout << "His avarage grade: " << avarage();
}
void main(){
Students in,out;
in.takingdata();
out.displaydata();
_getch();
}
As a result I want the program to display the entered information about the student.

Answer 1

First of all:
Students in,out;
in.takingdata();
out.displaydata();
How is this supposed to work? You have two objects here, writing into the first and reading from the second.
It should be something like:
Students students;
students.takingdata();
students.displaydata();
Still, it's important to understand what really happens in your version of the code. As we have just established, everything you read from std::cin into in is discarded later on. Which bears the question of what exactly you read from out. Let's look at the relevant portion of your class definition again:
int br;
char Name[30];
int fakn,i;
float grades[5],sum;
char spec[25];
All of these member variables are of so-called primitive type. This means, among other things, that if you don't initialize them explictly, they will be left uninitialized. For example, br does not "start at 0". It is, strictly speaking, nothing until you assign it something.
Any attempt to output these uninitialized values yields undefined behaviour. Undefined behaviour means that the C++ language specification "gives up" and does not say what the resulting program should do.
What often happens in practice in a situation like yours here is that your program reads a more or less random value that happened to be at the location in memory represented by the variable, and prints that one. The dangerous thing about this is that it may seem to work correctly for a long while because the memory location just happens to contain a zero value, luring you into thinking that your program is bug-free, and then it suddenly crashes or prints garbage values.
So the obvious first fix we should apply to your code is making sure that all the member variables are initialized. While we do that, I'll also:
Add #include <iostream> on top.
Add std:: in front of all standard-library features (that's good practice).
Change the illegal void main to int main.
Remove the unnecessary _getch call.
Here's the result afer the first iteration of fixes:
#include <iostream>
class Students{
int br;
char Name[30];
int fakn,i;
float grades[5],sum;
char spec[25];
public:
Students() :
br(0),
Name(),
fakn(0),
i(0),
grades(),
sum(0.0),
spec()
{}
void takingdata();
float avarage();
void displaydata();
};
void Students::takingdata(){
std::cout << "Enter name of the student: "; std::cin.getline(Name, 20);
std::cout << "Enter his faculty number: "; std::cin >> fakn;
std::cout << "specialty: "; std::cin.getline(spec, 10);
std::cout << "Enter grades : ";
for (i = 0; i < 5; i++){
std::cout << "Enter his grades(5 classes): "; std::cin >> grades[i];
}
}
float Students::avarage(){
sum = 0;
br = 0;
for (i = 0; i < 5; i++){
sum = sum + grades[i];
}
return sum / 5;
}
void Students::displaydata(){
std::cout << "Name of student: " << Name;
std::cout << "Student faculty number: " << fakn;
std::cout << "Student specialty: " << spec;
for (i = 0; i < 5; i++){
std::cout << "His " << i << " grade: " << grades[i];
}
std::cout << "His avarage grade: " << avarage();
}
int main(){
Students students;
students.takingdata();
students.displaydata();
}
Note: If you use Visual C++, you should read the following about array-member initialization:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/1ywe7hcy.aspx
But that's not yet very satisfactory. Why should a student's name not be longer than 29 characters (your array consists of a maximum of 29 visible characters plus a terminating '\0' for C-style strings)? And why should it take 30 characters in memory when it turns out to be much shorter?
In fact, what happens if you enter more than 29 characters? Let's give it a try:
Enter name of the student: Long name that does not fit any more in 30 characters
Enter his faculty number: specialty: Enter grades : Enter his grades(5 classes): Enter his grades(5 classes): Enter his grades(5 classes): Enter his grades(5 cl
asses): Enter his grades(5 classes): Name of student: Long name that doesStudent faculty number: 0Student specialty: His 0 grade: 0His 1 grade: 0His 2 grade: 0H
is 3 grade: 0His 4 grade: 0His avarage grade: 0
That's not good. std::istream::getline attempts to write more than 30 characters into a 30-element array. This already yields undefined behaviour. Even if it magically stopped after 30 elements, you'd end up with an array without the terminating '\0', so later outputting code would again leave the array's bounds looking for it. In addition to that, all attempts at reading numbers via std::cin fail because the stream contents after the 30th character cannot be interpreted as numbers, leaving the variables it's supposed to write into in their previous state.
As you can see, reading into a fixed-size char array the way you did is an almost hopeless undertaking. Fortunately, C++ does not force you to keep up with all of that. It offers std::string for dynamically sized strings, and a free-standing std::getline function to read safely into them.
Here's the second iteration of fixes. Note that std::string is not a primitive type, so it knows how to correctly initialize itself. I still added the two variables to the initializer list to be consistent with the other members.
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
class Students{
int br;
std::string Name;
int fakn,i;
float grades[5],sum;
std::string spec;
public:
Students() :
br(0),
Name(),
fakn(0),
i(0),
grades(),
sum(0.0),
spec()
{}
void takingdata();
float avarage();
void displaydata();
};
void Students::takingdata(){
std::cout << "Enter name of the student: "; std::getline(std::cin, Name);
std::cout << "Enter his faculty number: "; std::cin >> fakn;
std::cout << "specialty: "; std::getline(std::cin, spec);
std::cout << "Enter grades : ";
for (i = 0; i < 5; i++){
std::cout << "Enter his grades(5 classes): "; std::cin >> grades[i];
}
}
float Students::avarage(){
sum = 0;
br = 0;
for (i = 0; i < 5; i++){
sum = sum + grades[i];
}
return sum / 5;
}
void Students::displaydata(){
std::cout << "Name of student: " << Name;
std::cout << "Student faculty number: " << fakn;
std::cout << "Student specialty: " << spec;
for (i = 0; i < 5; i++){
std::cout << "His " << i << " grade: " << grades[i];
}
std::cout << "His avarage grade: " << avarage();
}
int main(){
Students students;
students.takingdata();
students.displaydata();
}
The program could take a lot more fixes. For example, you will want to replace the float array with std::vector<float>, and also generally use double instead of float.
In short: You should just use more C++ and less C if you want to program in C++.

Answer 2

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdio>
using namespace std;
class Students {
private:
static const int CLASSES = 5;
static const int NAME = 30;
static const int SPEC = 15;
char name[NAME], spec[SPEC];
int fakn;
float grades[CLASSES],sum;
public:
Students();
void takingdata();
void avarage();
void displaydata();
};
//constructor
Students::Students(){
takingdata();
avarage();
displaydata();
}
//user innput
void Students::takingdata(){
cout << "Enter name of the student: ";
cin.getline(name, NAME);
cout << "Enter his faculty number: ";
cin >> fakn;
cin.ignore();
cout << "specialty: ";
cin.getline(spec, SPEC);
printf("\nEnter Grades (%u classes)\n", CLASSES);
for (int i = 0; i < CLASSES; i++){
printf("Grade 0%u: ", i+1);
cin >> grades[i];
}
}
//calculations
void Students::avarage(){
sum = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < CLASSES; i++){
sum = sum + grades[i];
}
sum /= CLASSES;
}
//display
void Students::displaydata(){
printf("\n\nStudent Name: %s\nFaculty Number: %u\nSpecialty: %s\nGrade Average: %f", name, fakn, spec, sum);
for (int i = 0; i < CLASSES; i++){
printf("\nGrade 0%u: %f", i+1, grades[i]);
}
}
//main
int main(){
//all other functions now called in constructor
Students in;
return 0;
}