I am trying to read in and then output the contents of a text file with three lines, as follows:
Bob Dylan 10 9
John Lennon 8 7
David Bowie 6 5
For each line, I just want to output the line, i.e. firstName LastName number1 number2.
I'm using the following code for this:
int num1;
int num2;
string firstName;
string lastName;
string fullName;
ifstream inFile;
inFile.open("inputFile.txt");
while (getline(inFile, firstName))
{
inFile >> firstName >> lastName >> num1 >> num2;
fullName = firstName + " " + lastName;
cout << fullName << " " << num1 << " " << num2 << endl;
}
inFile.close();
There are 2 problems with the output from this. First, the first line is not output, although from experimentation I know that it DOES read it in. Second, after the last 2 lines are read in and output (as desired), the program displays everything in the last line EXCEPT the first name (in this case the last thing it prints is Bowie 6 5).
Can someone use this simple example to explain how the getline function works when reading in multiple lines from a file? (I don't even know if it's the best way, but it's the only way I know as of yet). Here are some specific questions.
First, does the while loop conditional getline(inFile, firstName) return a boolean? If so, how can it be true (i.e. how can the while loop start) if I haven't given firstName a value yet? Is it the case that the program reads the first line and if there's something there, then it executes the while loop, but starting with the second line, because it already used the first to check for content?
Second, if firstName does have a value, and if that value is the first name on the first line ("Bob" in this case), why isn't the first line output at all? I've been racking my brain trying to figure out where it went to.
Third, after the program reads in and displays the last two lines, the program moves to the next line and encounters nothing but blanks, right? Then what would be the value of firstName? Would it be blank, or would it still be "David"? If it's blank, why does the while loop execute again? But if it's "David", then why does the program not output that value along with the others?
Btw, I am working out of a textbook (not for homework), and it covers getline, but not for multiple lines. But then the exercises involve multiple lines, so I'm a bit lost.
You are trying to read each line twice.
while (getline(inFile, firstName)) // reads the line
{
// reads the next line and overwrites firstName!
inFile >> firstName >> lastName >> num1 >> num2;
Change it to:
while ( inFile >> firstName >> lastName >> num1 >> num2 )
{
fullName = firstName + " " + lastName;
cout << fullName << " " << num1 << " " << num2 << endl;
}
EDIT: To answer your questions:
How does getline() work?
Reads the entire line up to '\n' character or the delimiting character specified. http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/string/string/getline/?kw=getline
After reading the line, the control goes to the next line in the file.
Also, it returns a boolean value of true if the read operation was successful, else false.
The extraction operator truncates on all whitespaces by default. It also returns a boolean value indicating whether the operation was successful.
Related
I wrote a very basic program in C++ which asked the user to input a number and then a string. To my surprise, when running the program it never stopped to ask for the string. It just skipped over it. After doing some reading on StackOverflow, I found out that I needed to add a line that said:
cin.ignore(256, '\n');
before the line that gets the string input. Adding that fixed the problem and made the program work. My question is why does C++ need this cin.ignore() line and how can I predict when I will need to use cin.ignore()?
Here is the program I wrote:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
double num;
string mystr;
cout << "Please enter a number: " << "\n";
cin >> num;
cout << "Your number is: " << num << "\n";
cin.ignore(256, '\n'); // Why do I need this line?
cout << "Please enter your name: \n";
getline (cin, mystr);
cout << "So your name is " << mystr << "?\n";
cout << "Have a nice day. \n";
}
ignore does exactly what the name implies.
It doesn't "throw away" something you don't need. Instead, it ignores the number of characters you specify when you call it, up to the char you specify as a delimiter.
It works with both input and output buffers.
Essentially, for std::cin statements you use ignore before you do a getline call, because when a user inputs something with std::cin, they hit enter and a '\n' char gets into the cin buffer. Then if you use getline, it gets the newline char instead of the string you want. So you do a std::cin.ignore(1000,'\n') and that should clear the buffer up to the string that you want. (The 1000 is put there to skip over a specific number of chars before the specified delimiter, in this case, the '\n' newline character.)
You're thinking about this the wrong way. You're thinking in logical steps each time cin or getline is used. Ex. First ask for a number, then ask for a name. That is the wrong way to think about cin. So you run into a race condition because you assume the stream is clear each time you ask for a input.
If you write your program purely for input you'll find the problem:
int main()
{
double num;
string mystr;
cin >> num;
getline(cin, mystr);
cout << "num=" << num << ",mystr=\'" << mystr << "\'" << endl;
}
In the above, you are thinking, "first get a number." So you type in 123 press enter, and your output will be num=123,mystr=''. Why is that? It's because in the stream you have 123\n and the 123 is parsed into the num variable while \n is still in the stream. Reading the doc for getline function by default it will look in the istream until a \n is encountered. In this example, since \n is in the stream, it looks like it "skipped" it but it worked properly.
For the above to work, you'll have to enter 123Hello World which will properly output num=123,mystr='Hello World'. That, or you put a cin.ignore between the cin and getline so that it'll break into logical steps that you expect.
This is why you need the ignore command. Because you are thinking of it in logical steps rather than in a stream form so you run into a race condition.
Take another code example that is commonly found in schools:
int main()
{
int age;
string firstName;
string lastName;
cout << "First name: ";
cin >> firstName;
cout << "Last name: ";
cin >> lastName;
cout << "Age: ";
cin >> age;
cout << "Hello " << firstName << " " << lastName << "! You are " << age << " years old!" << endl;
}
The above seems to be in logical steps. First ask for first name, last name, then age. So if you did John enter, then Doe enter, then 19 enter, the application works each logic step. If you think of it in "streams" you can simply enter John Doe 19 on the "First name:" question and it would work as well and appear to skip the remaining questions. For the above to work in logical steps, you would need to ignore the remaining stream for each logical break in questions.
Just remember to think of your program input as it is reading from a "stream" and not in logical steps. Each time you call cin it is being read from a stream. This creates a rather buggy application if the user enters the wrong input. For example, if you entered a character where a cin >> double is expected, the application will produce a seemingly bizarre output.
Short answer
Why? Because there is still whitespace (carriage returns, tabs, spaces, newline) left in the input stream.
When? When you are using some function which does not on their own ignores the leading whitespaces. Cin by default ignores and removes the leading whitespace but getline does not ignore the leading whitespace on its own.
Now a detailed answer.
Everything you input in the console is read from the standard stream stdin. When you enter something, let's say 256 in your case and press enter, the contents of the stream become 256\n. Now cin picks up 256 and removes it from the stream and \n still remaining in the stream.
Now next when you enter your name, let's say Raddicus, the new contents of the stream is \nRaddicus.
Now here comes the catch.
When you try to read a line using getline, if not provided any delimiter as the third argument, getline by default reads till the newline character and removes the newline character from the stream.
So on calling new line, getline reads and discards \n from the stream and resulting in an empty string read in mystr which appears like getline is skipped (but it's not) because there was already an newline in the stream, getline will not prompt for input as it has already read what it was supposed to read.
Now, how does cin.ignore help here?
According to the ignore documentation extract from cplusplus.com-
istream& ignore (streamsize n = 1, int delim = EOF);
Extracts characters from the input sequence and discards them, until
either n characters have been extracted, or one compares equal to
delim.
The function also stops extracting characters if the end-of-file is
reached. If this is reached prematurely (before either extracting n
characters or finding delim), the function sets the eofbit flag.
So, cin.ignore(256, '\n');, ignores first 256 characters or all the character untill it encounters delimeter (here \n in your case), whichever comes first (here \n is the first character, so it ignores until \n is encountered).
Just for your reference, If you don't exactly know how many characters to skip and your sole purpose is to clear the stream to prepare for reading a string using getline or cin you should use cin.ignore(numeric_limits<streamsize>::max(),'\n').
Quick explanation: It ignores the characters equal to maximum size of stream or until a '\n' is encountered, whichever case happens first.
When you want to throw away a specific number of characters from the input stream manually.
A very common use case is using this to safely ignore newline characters since cin will sometimes leave newline characters that you will have to go over to get to the next line of input.
Long story short it gives you flexibility when handling stream input.
Ignore function is used to skip(discard/throw away) characters in the input stream. Ignore file is associated with the file istream.
Consider the function below
ex: cin.ignore(120,'/n');
the particular function skips the next 120 input character or to skip the characters until a newline character is read.
As pointed right by many other users. It's because there may be whitespace or a newline character.
Consider the following code, it removes all the duplicate characters from a given string.
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
int main() {
int t;
cin>>t;
cin.ignore(); //Notice that this cin.ignore() is really crucial for any extra whitespace or newline character
while(t--){
vector<int> v(256,0);
string s;
getline(cin,s);
string s2;
for(int i=0;i<s.size();i++){
if (v[s[i]]) continue;
else{
s2.push_back(s[i]);
v[s[i]]++;
}
}
cout<<s2<<endl;
}
return 0;
}
So, You get the point that it will ignore those unwanted inputs and will get the job done.
It is better to use scanf(" %[^\n]",str) in c++ than cin.ignore() after cin>> statement.To do that first you have to include < cstdio > header.
I am in the middle of a college project which kind of looks like a students' database.
Each line of the text file follows this "model":
age ; full_name ; avg
I need to read the text file and store everything in a vector of structs and I could do that if the name was only one word.
Well, obviously, age is an int, avg is a double, but what about the full name?
I can't just use file >> full_name;, with full_name being a string because it would stop reading to it once it gets to a whitespace. The getline() function would store everything in one place so I am not sure what to do.
Please share your knowlegde with this young mind x)
As many others pointed out, you can use std::getline to read chars till a delimiter.
Consider this snippet of code as a starting point:
int age;
std::string name;
double average;
// ... Open the file which stores the data ...
// then read every line. The loop stops if some of the reading operations fails
while ( input >> age &&
std::getline(input, name, ';') && // consume the first ;
std::getline(input, name, ';') && // read the name
input >> average ) {
// do whatever you need with the data read
cout << "age: " << age << " name: " << name << " average: " << average << '\n';
}
I wrote a very basic program in C++ which asked the user to input a number and then a string. To my surprise, when running the program it never stopped to ask for the string. It just skipped over it. After doing some reading on StackOverflow, I found out that I needed to add a line that said:
cin.ignore(256, '\n');
before the line that gets the string input. Adding that fixed the problem and made the program work. My question is why does C++ need this cin.ignore() line and how can I predict when I will need to use cin.ignore()?
Here is the program I wrote:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
double num;
string mystr;
cout << "Please enter a number: " << "\n";
cin >> num;
cout << "Your number is: " << num << "\n";
cin.ignore(256, '\n'); // Why do I need this line?
cout << "Please enter your name: \n";
getline (cin, mystr);
cout << "So your name is " << mystr << "?\n";
cout << "Have a nice day. \n";
}
ignore does exactly what the name implies.
It doesn't "throw away" something you don't need. Instead, it ignores the number of characters you specify when you call it, up to the char you specify as a delimiter.
It works with both input and output buffers.
Essentially, for std::cin statements you use ignore before you do a getline call, because when a user inputs something with std::cin, they hit enter and a '\n' char gets into the cin buffer. Then if you use getline, it gets the newline char instead of the string you want. So you do a std::cin.ignore(1000,'\n') and that should clear the buffer up to the string that you want. (The 1000 is put there to skip over a specific number of chars before the specified delimiter, in this case, the '\n' newline character.)
You're thinking about this the wrong way. You're thinking in logical steps each time cin or getline is used. Ex. First ask for a number, then ask for a name. That is the wrong way to think about cin. So you run into a race condition because you assume the stream is clear each time you ask for a input.
If you write your program purely for input you'll find the problem:
int main()
{
double num;
string mystr;
cin >> num;
getline(cin, mystr);
cout << "num=" << num << ",mystr=\'" << mystr << "\'" << endl;
}
In the above, you are thinking, "first get a number." So you type in 123 press enter, and your output will be num=123,mystr=''. Why is that? It's because in the stream you have 123\n and the 123 is parsed into the num variable while \n is still in the stream. Reading the doc for getline function by default it will look in the istream until a \n is encountered. In this example, since \n is in the stream, it looks like it "skipped" it but it worked properly.
For the above to work, you'll have to enter 123Hello World which will properly output num=123,mystr='Hello World'. That, or you put a cin.ignore between the cin and getline so that it'll break into logical steps that you expect.
This is why you need the ignore command. Because you are thinking of it in logical steps rather than in a stream form so you run into a race condition.
Take another code example that is commonly found in schools:
int main()
{
int age;
string firstName;
string lastName;
cout << "First name: ";
cin >> firstName;
cout << "Last name: ";
cin >> lastName;
cout << "Age: ";
cin >> age;
cout << "Hello " << firstName << " " << lastName << "! You are " << age << " years old!" << endl;
}
The above seems to be in logical steps. First ask for first name, last name, then age. So if you did John enter, then Doe enter, then 19 enter, the application works each logic step. If you think of it in "streams" you can simply enter John Doe 19 on the "First name:" question and it would work as well and appear to skip the remaining questions. For the above to work in logical steps, you would need to ignore the remaining stream for each logical break in questions.
Just remember to think of your program input as it is reading from a "stream" and not in logical steps. Each time you call cin it is being read from a stream. This creates a rather buggy application if the user enters the wrong input. For example, if you entered a character where a cin >> double is expected, the application will produce a seemingly bizarre output.
Short answer
Why? Because there is still whitespace (carriage returns, tabs, spaces, newline) left in the input stream.
When? When you are using some function which does not on their own ignores the leading whitespaces. Cin by default ignores and removes the leading whitespace but getline does not ignore the leading whitespace on its own.
Now a detailed answer.
Everything you input in the console is read from the standard stream stdin. When you enter something, let's say 256 in your case and press enter, the contents of the stream become 256\n. Now cin picks up 256 and removes it from the stream and \n still remaining in the stream.
Now next when you enter your name, let's say Raddicus, the new contents of the stream is \nRaddicus.
Now here comes the catch.
When you try to read a line using getline, if not provided any delimiter as the third argument, getline by default reads till the newline character and removes the newline character from the stream.
So on calling new line, getline reads and discards \n from the stream and resulting in an empty string read in mystr which appears like getline is skipped (but it's not) because there was already an newline in the stream, getline will not prompt for input as it has already read what it was supposed to read.
Now, how does cin.ignore help here?
According to the ignore documentation extract from cplusplus.com-
istream& ignore (streamsize n = 1, int delim = EOF);
Extracts characters from the input sequence and discards them, until
either n characters have been extracted, or one compares equal to
delim.
The function also stops extracting characters if the end-of-file is
reached. If this is reached prematurely (before either extracting n
characters or finding delim), the function sets the eofbit flag.
So, cin.ignore(256, '\n');, ignores first 256 characters or all the character untill it encounters delimeter (here \n in your case), whichever comes first (here \n is the first character, so it ignores until \n is encountered).
Just for your reference, If you don't exactly know how many characters to skip and your sole purpose is to clear the stream to prepare for reading a string using getline or cin you should use cin.ignore(numeric_limits<streamsize>::max(),'\n').
Quick explanation: It ignores the characters equal to maximum size of stream or until a '\n' is encountered, whichever case happens first.
When you want to throw away a specific number of characters from the input stream manually.
A very common use case is using this to safely ignore newline characters since cin will sometimes leave newline characters that you will have to go over to get to the next line of input.
Long story short it gives you flexibility when handling stream input.
Ignore function is used to skip(discard/throw away) characters in the input stream. Ignore file is associated with the file istream.
Consider the function below
ex: cin.ignore(120,'/n');
the particular function skips the next 120 input character or to skip the characters until a newline character is read.
As pointed right by many other users. It's because there may be whitespace or a newline character.
Consider the following code, it removes all the duplicate characters from a given string.
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
int main() {
int t;
cin>>t;
cin.ignore(); //Notice that this cin.ignore() is really crucial for any extra whitespace or newline character
while(t--){
vector<int> v(256,0);
string s;
getline(cin,s);
string s2;
for(int i=0;i<s.size();i++){
if (v[s[i]]) continue;
else{
s2.push_back(s[i]);
v[s[i]]++;
}
}
cout<<s2<<endl;
}
return 0;
}
So, You get the point that it will ignore those unwanted inputs and will get the job done.
It is better to use scanf(" %[^\n]",str) in c++ than cin.ignore() after cin>> statement.To do that first you have to include < cstdio > header.
I am trying to input a string. It's working fine when I input something like John.
But if I input something like John Smite I end up in an endless loop and a terminal crash.
string fullname;
do{
cout << "Please input the Full Name of the user: ";
cin >> fullname;
}while(fullname=="");
The space is throwing cin off. You should use getline.
You can try this one:
do{
cout << "Please input the Full Name of the user: ";
cin >> fullname;
}
while(fullname.length() == 0);
As to why you get an infinite loop - operator>> overload for std::string will first discard any leading whitespace and then read up to either next whitespace or the end of avaliable input.
When you enter "John Smite", first iteration reads "John", second iteration reads "Smite" and then there's no more input for subsequent iterations. The problem is that your implementation seems to clear fullname before it attempts a read. But because the stream is not in good state anymore, no more reads are possible and there's your infinite loop.
You could do something like this instead:
string temp;
string fullname;
do {
cin.clear(); // clear any error flags
do {
if (cin >> temp) fullname += temp + ' ';
} while (cin.good());
} while (fullname.empty());
This has a (good) side effect that it collapses multiple adjacent whitespace characters, but it's still pretty clunky.
Much better way would be to just say
do std::getline(std::cin, fullname); while (fullname.empty());
I have a text file with a line like:
James Dean 10 Automotive 27010.43
and I need to read that file and put each of the 4 above into arrays.
char nameArray[MAX][NAME_MAX];
int yearArray[MAX];
char departmentArray[MAX][DEP_MAX];
double payArray[MAX];
while(i < MAX && infile) {
infile.getline(nameArray[i], 20);
infile >> yearArray[i];
infile.getline(departmentArray[i], 15);
infile >> payArray[i];
cout << nameArray[i] << " " << yearArray[i] << " " << departmentArray[i] << " " << fixed << setprecision(2) << payArray[i] << endl;
i++;
}
The code is cut down just to give you an idea of what I am trying to do, but when I run this, I get something like:
James Dean -858993460 -92559631349317830000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000.00
Thanks for the help.
==== Edit ==========================================
I changed from getline to get, thanks for that. I have to use get and not >> because some of the lines I am reading in are more than just "James Dean", they are up to 20 char long...ex: "William K. Woodward" is another one.
So, if I just use get, then it reads the first line in fine, but then I get the same messed up text for the second line.
Here is the code:
infile.get(nameArray[i], 20);
infile >> yearArray[i];
infile.get(departmentArray[i], 15);
infile >> payArray[i];
The getline functions takes an input stream and a string to write to. So, two getline calls read in two lines. Your input mechanism is broken. Either, use getline or the stream extraction operator (i.e. >>) but not both.
If you plan to use getline you need to parse the string (which is effectively one line of input) into tokes, and then store them in appropriately typed arrays. The second and fourth tokens are numbers, hence you will need to convert these from string to int or double.
The operator >> approach:
string name, surname;
int year;
double pay;
while (infile) {
infile >> name >> surname >> year >> department >> pay;
namearray[ i ] = name + " " + surname;
// ...
payarray[ i ] = pay;
++i;
}
The getline approach:
string line;
while (getline(infile, line)) {
parse(line, tokens);
namearray[ i ] = token[ 0 ] + " " + token[ 1 ];
// ...
payarray[ i ] = strTodouble(token[ 4 ]);
++i;
}
// parse definition
void parse(string line, vector<string>& token) {
// roll your own
}
double strToDouble(string s) {
// ...
}
I dont see where you define infile but I will assume that it is an ifile . In that case you should use it the same way u use cin to get input.
Why do you do a getline () ?
That function will stop only at an '\n' char or at an EOF char. So it means, you start reading the int after the end of the line, some random data.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but are there 20 or 19 characters in that first string (James Dean) before the number (10) ?