String to ascii function - c++

Question

I actually wrote a function to convert string into ascii values.
However I managed to confuse my self and don't understand why my own code works.
here it is:
void convertToString()
{
char redo;
int letter;
int length;
do {
cout<< "How long is your word \n";
cin >> length;
cout << "Type in the letter values \n";
for (int x = 0; x < length; x++) {
cin >> letter;
cout << char (letter);
}
cout << "\n To enter another word hit R" << endl;
cin >> redo;
} while (redo == 'R');
}
In the terminal I can type in all the ASCII values I want with out changing line, however I though this would cause a problem, anyways my question is, is hitting the enter button the same as hitting space? if not i dont understand how my code is able to print out the chars since i write it all in one line...Does it assign the interger "letter" a new value everytime there is a space?
Please help/explain

Answer 1

This is to expand a bit on what Igor said in his comment and to give a little example.
As Igor said, istream::operator>>(&int) will read non-whitespace. This means for each call on the operator, it scans along the input stream (what you typed in) for non-whitespace and reads until the next whitespace again. The next call will pick up where you left off. So, entering a space or a newline is exactly the same for this situation where you're taking in an int.
You can verify this with a simple bit of code that scans until EOF:
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
int number;
while (std::cin >> number)
{
std::cout << number << std::endl;
}
return 0;
}
This will wait for user entry to be complete (pressing enter), but print a new line for each integer in your input as separated by whitespace. So "1 2 3 4" will print each of those numbers on separate lines, regardless of if you separate them with spaces, tabs, or newlines.