C++ manipulating numbers in ASCII to stay only in range of letters - c++

Question

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
Int main() {
cout<<"Give me a letter" <<endl;
char letter;
cin>>letter;
cout<<letter;
(Int)letter;
letter+=2;
cout<<(char)letter;
(Int)letter;
letter-=25;
cout<<(char)letter;
return 0;
}
How would I manipulate the numbers in a way so that the numbers will always output a letter.
ie: if the letter z was chosen and adding 2 is a symbol how would I manipulate it in a way so that it will always stay between the numbers for capital numbers and uncapitalized numbers. Thanks. Please try to keep answers at a beginner level please I am new to this.

Answer 1

if(letter > 'z') {
//do stuff
}
if(letter < 'a' && letter > 'Z') {
//do stuff
}
if(letter < 'A') {
//do stuff
}
It just depends on how you want to handle the character when it goes into one of the three ranges on the ASCII chart in which the characters are not letters.
As a side note, you don't have to cast a char to an int to do math with it.
char myChar = 'a' + 2;
cout << myChar;
This will print: c
c has an ASCII value of 2 more than a.

Answer 2

The surest method is to use a table for each category, and do
your arithmetic on its index, modulo the size of the table.
Thus, for just lower case letters, you might do something like:
char
transcode( char original )
{
char results = original;
static std::string const lower( "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" );
auto pos = std::find( lower.begin(), lower.end(), results );
if ( pos != lower.end() ) {
int index = pos - lower.begin();
index = (index + 2) % lower.size();
results = lower[ index ];
}
return results;
}
This solution is general, and will work regardless of the sets
of letters you want to deal with. For digits (and for upper and
lower case, if you aren't too worried about portability), you
can take advantage of the fact that the code points are
contiguous, and do something like:
char
transcode( char original )
{
char results = original;
if ( results >= '0' && results <= '9' ) {
char tmp = results - '0'
tmp = (tmp + 2) % 10;
results = tmp + '0';
}
return results;
}
An alternative implementation would be to use something like:
results = results + 2;
if ( results > '9' ) {
results -= 10;
}
in the if above. These two solutions are mathematically
equivalent.
This is only guaranteed to work for digits, but will generally
work for upper or lower case if you limit yourself to the
original ASCII character set. (Be aware that most systems today
support extended character sets.)

Answer 3

You can test directly against ASCII chars by using 'x' notation. Further, you can test things together using && ("and" respectively"):
if ('a' <= letter && letter <= 'z') {
// Letter is between 'a' and 'z'
} else if ('A' <= letter && letter <= 'Z')) {
// Letter is between 'A' and 'Z'
} else {
// Error! Letter is not between 'a' and 'z' or 'A' and 'Z'
}
Or you can use the standard library function std::isalpha which handles this for you:
if (std::isalpha(letter)) {
// Letter is between 'a' and 'z' or 'A' and 'Z'
} else {
// Error! Letter is not between 'a' and 'z' or 'A' and 'Z'
}