Everytime there is an error with the input type in this function, it automatically sets the value of *_cost to 0. Why is this happening?
void Item::setCost(string input){
float entered;
istringstream stin;
stin.str(input);
if(!(stin >> entered)){
do{
cout << "invalid input" << endl;
stin.clear();
getline(cin, input);
stin.str(input);
*_cost = entered;
}
while(!(stin >> entered));
}
else{
*_cost = entered;
}
}
I use the function in my main function as follows:
istringstream stin;
string input;
cout << "enter cost" << endl;
getline(cin, input);
items[i]->setCost(input);
You are setting *_cost to a value that, because of the if statement, is ALWAYS going to be a necessarily incorrect value.
The *_cost = entered line will ONLY execute when the program is going through its "invalid input" code. The program only prints "invalid input" when entered is not a legal value. Therefore _cost can only be set to an illegal value.
To solve your problem, put the *_cost = entered after the do-while loop.
I'm not sure why you aren't just using std::cin to read the data directly, rather than converting the standard input to an instance of std::string and then to an istringstream.
You need to move the first *_cost = entered out of the do .. while block to become the first statement after it. Having done that, you'll see a further refactor helpful although not required.
while(!(stin >> entered))
{
cout << "invalid input" << endl;
stin.clear();
getline(cin, input);
stin.str(input);
}
*_cost = entered;
while executing *_cost = entered; in your code, entered is invalid.
I have just corrected your code with your original intention
bool Item::setCost(string input) {
bool ret_val = true;
float entered = 0.0;
istringstream stin;
stin.str(input);
while ( !(stin >> entered) ) { // loop till you read a valid input
if ( !stin.rdbuf()->in_avail() ) {
ret_val = false;
break;
}
}
*_cost = entered;
return ret_val;
}
stin.rdbuf()->in_avail() can be used to get the count of available characters ready to be read in from a stringstream, you can use that to check if your stringstream is "empty."
For example if you want to extract an float from a istringstream but you get somthing else (fail condition) and then see if there were any left over characters (ie. numeric) you could check if stin.rdbuf()->in_avail() == 0.
Related
I am currently working on a text based adventure game as a project for class. I have mostly everything started and working fine. The only problem is when I ask the user which room they want to change to, if they enter a blank input, then a message should output saying "You must choose a room." For the life of me I cannot figure it out. Any help is much appreciated.
Code:
#include <iostream>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <ctime>
using namespace std;
int main() {
bool game_play = true;
bool game_start = true;
int room_change;
int room_current = 0;
while (game_play == true) {
if (game_start == true) {
srand((unsigned int)time(NULL));
room_change = rand() % 2 + 1;
game_start = false;
}
else {
for (bool check = false; check == false;) { // Check if input is invalid
cin >> room_change;
if (cin.fail()) {
cout << "Choose an existing room.";
cin.clear();
cin.ignore();
}
else if (room_change == room_current) {
cout << "You're already in that room.";
}
else {
check = true;
}
}
}
switch (room_change) {
case 1:
cout << "You are in room 1.";
room_current = 1;
break;
case 2:
cout << "You are in room 2.";
room_current = 2;
break;
case 3:
game_play = false;
break;
default:
cout << "That room doesn't exist.";
}
}
return 0;
}
I just ran your code and when you hit enter, it will keep waiting until you enter a number or something invalid such as a character or a string. I did find that if you change your code from
cin >> room_change;
to
cin >> noskipws >> room_change;
when the user inputs a blank, it will cause the cin.fail() to return true and then proceed to print "Choose an existing room."
In your situation, the while loop will keep getting called until we have valid input. The "Choose an existing room" does get repeated because room_change is an integer, so when we hit enter, the '\n' will be left in the buffer. The while loop on the next iteration then reads that '\n' and executes the cin.fail() before letting you input something else. One solution I found is to use more cin.ignore() statements.
for (bool check = false; check == false;) { // Check if input is invalid
cin >> noskipws >> room_change;
if (cin.fail()) {
cout << "Choose an existing room.";
cin.clear();
cin.ignore();
} else if (room_change == room_current) {
cout << "You're already in that room.";
cin.ignore();
} else {
check = true;
cin.ignore();
}
}
The reason is because we want to get rid of that '\n' so that the cin.fail() does not execute. However, I did find that when you input a character, it will print "Choose an existing room" twice. It will print the first time because a character is not an integer, and a second time because of that '\n'.
The only problem is when I ask the user which room they want to change to, if they enter a blank input, then a message should output saying "You must choose a room."
Using std::getline and then extracting the number from the line using a std::istringstream is a better strategy for that.
std::string line;
std::cout << "Choose an existing room. ";
while ( std::getline(std::cin, line) )
{
// Try to get the room_change using istringstream.
std::istringstream str(line);
if ( str >> room_change )
{
// Successfully read the room.
break;
}
// Problem reading room_change.
// Try again.
std::cout << "Choose an existing room. ";
}
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main(){
int room_change=200;
cout<<"Enter Blank";
cin>>room_change;
if(room_change==NULL){
cout<<"There is NO-THING"<<endl;
}
if(room_change!=NULL){
cout<<"There is something and that is :"<<room_change<<endl;
}
return 0;
}
But a much simpler approach to this would be to use Strings. If this is a Homework of sort and you are limited to Integer variable only. Its much more complicated if you want to detect if an Buffer is empty or not. Regardless of homework limitation, the OS layer input is String based. How can I use cin.get() to detect an empty user input?
This code works fine if I enter something that isn't a number in, e.g. F: it will print the error message. However, if I enter e.g. 2F2 or , it will take the 2 and pass the check, continue in my code and on the next cin >> statement it will put the F in, and then it loops back and puts the 2 in.
How do I make it so it only accepts a single number e.g. 2 and not e.g. 2F2 or 2.2?
int bet = 0;
// User input for bet
cout << " Place your bet: ";
cin >> bet;
cout <<
// Check if the bet is a number
if (!cin.good())
{
cin.clear();
cin.ignore();
cout << endl << "Please enter a valid number" << endl;
return;
}
bool Checknum(std::string line) {
bool isnum = true;
int decimalpoint = 0;
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < line.length(); ++i) {
if (isdigit(line[i]) == false) {
if (line[i] == '.') {
++decimalpoint; // Checks if the input has a decimal point that is causing the error.
}
else {
isnum = false;
break;
}
}
}
if (decimalpoint > 1) // If it has more than one decimal point.
isnum = false;
return isnum;
}
If you take a string from the user, this should work. You can convert the string to an integer or a float(stoi or stof, respectively). It may not be the best solution there is, but this is what I have. Excuse the indentation.
Do getline to read one whole line of input from cin.
Create a stringstream to parse the string you got.
In this parser, read the number; if it fails - error
Read whitespace; if it doesn't arrive to the end of string - error
#include <sstream>
...
int bet = 0;
std::cout << " Place your bet: ";
while (true)
{
std::string temp_str;
std::getline(cin, temp_str);
std::stringstream parser(temp_str);
if (parser >> bet && (parser >> std::ws).eof())
break; // success
cout << endl << "Please enter a valid number" << endl;
}
This code keeps printing the error message until it receives valid input. Not sure this is exactly what you want, but it's pretty customary UI.
Here >> ws means "read all the whitespace". And eof ("end of file") means "end of the input string".
I tried to use if(!cin) to validate if the user input really is an integer. However my programm then just goes into an infinite loop never asking vor new input
do{
cin >> temp->data;
if(!cin){
cout << "Please enter a Number!" << '\n';
correct=false;
}
}while(correct==false);
Would be great if someone could help me :)
When std::cin fails to read the input, the appropriate error flags are set. Therefore you want to reset the flags using std::cin.clear() so that the next input operation will work correctly and then skip everything until the new line using std::cin.ignore(..) in order to avoid similarly formatted input.
while (!(std::cin >> temp->data))
{
std::cin.clear();
std::cin.ignore(std::numeric_limits<std::streamsize>::max(), '\n');
std::cout << "\nPlease enter a number!" << std::endl;
}
std::numeric_limits<std::streamsize>::max() returns the max amount of characters a stream can hold so that the whole line is guaranteed to be ignored.
If you want to do that kind of check, read the data from cin to a string and convert the string to a number:
string str;
do{
cin >> str;
if(!cin){
cout << "Please enter a Number!" << '\n';
correct=false;
}
else{
istringstream stream(str);
stream >> temp->data;
if(!stream){
cout << "Please enter a Number!" << '\n';
correct=false;
}
}
}while(correct==false);
Use cin.fail() to check whether the user entered correct input. cin.fail() returns true if the last cin command failed, and false otherwise. Moreover, your loop is likely to be infinite, so you must also state an else where you will set the check flag correct to true. Thus, to invalidate the loop's condition and exit the loop in the case user entered correct input (see code below):
do{
cin >> temp->data;
if(cin.fail()){
cin.clear();
cin.ignore(10000, '\n');
cout << "Please enter a Number!" << '\n';
correct=false;
} else {
correct=true;
}
}while(correct==false);
Your 'correct' variable actually doesn't do anything the way you are using it. It's not possible to exit the loop without correct being true; so you could do away with it, and just use a loop-exiting command when you have read the number.
Also, none of the answers posted so far handle the input being closed. They would go into an infinite loop in that scenario.
// A loop; we will break out when we successfully read a number.
while ( 1 )
{
// Prompt for a number and read it
cout << "Please enter a Number!" << endl;
cin >> temp->data;
// Exit loop if we successfully read
if ( cin )
break;
// Check to see if we failed due to the input being closed
if ( cin.eof() )
{
cerr << "End of input reached.\n";
return 0; // depends what your function returns of course
}
// reset the error condition that was caused by trying to read an integer and failing
cin.clear();
// discard anything they previously typed
cin.ignore(numeric_limits<streamsize>::max(), '\n');
}
Moving on from this, a good design would be to actually have this code be an entire function in itself. Then you can call the function whenever you need to get a number safely, without needing to duplicate code. The function declaration might be:
void input_number(int &the_number, std::istream &in, std::string prompt);
which would output the_number, and it would handle end-of-file either by throwing an exception, or by relying on the caller to check for !cin, or even by returning a bool; whatever fits in best with your error handling overall.
For one, if you put a "!" before a condition in an if statement. That's supposed to be a "not" operator.
bool correct = false;
while (!correct)
{
cout << "Please enter an angle value => ";
cin >> value; //request user to input a value
if(cin.fail())
{
cin.clear();
while(cin.get() != '\n');
correct = false;
}
else
cin.get();
cin.ignore();
correct = true;
}
Here's my problem according to the code above:
After I input a value, the program will pause and I have to press enter again to proceed to next part of the program; how can I avoid it?
Besides, if I enter value like 'abcd', program will not loop to request user to input value again, why is it so?
Instead, it will still proceed and output a value of 0.
I'm still new to these kind of command, just playing and explore them, I appreciate your guides!
edit:
while (!correct)
{
cout << "Please enter an angle value => ";
cin >> value; //request user to input a value
if(cin.fail())
{
cin.clear();
while(cin.get() != '\n');
correct = false;
}
else
{
cin.get();
cin.ignore();
correct = true;
}
}
You set correct=true unconditionally on the very first iteration, and bail out of the loop. Looks like you meant to add a pair of braces around the three statements after else.
Something like this
cout << "Enter the number of columns: " ;
cin >> input ;
while( input != int ){
cout << endl <<"Column size must be an integer"<< endl << endl;
cout << "Enter the number of columns: " ;
cin >> input ;
}
cin will do this for you, kind of. cin will fail if it receives something that is not of the same type as input. What you can do is this:
int input;
while(!(cin >> input))
{
cin.clear();
cin.ignore(numeric_limits<streamsize>::max(), '\n');
cout << endl <<"Column size must be an integer"<< endl << endl;
cout << "Enter the number of columns: " ;
}
The cin.clear() clears the error bits, and cin.ignore() clears the input stream. I'm using number_limits to get the maximum size of the stream, that requires that you #include<limits>. Alternatively you can just use a big number or a loop.
You can't do it like that; input has to have some concrete type.
The simplest approach that will work is to read a string from cin, then convert it to an integer in a second step with strtol or one of its relatives, and issue an error message if strtol doesn't consume the whole string.
#include<iostream.h>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
int x;
int input;
while(!0){
cout<<"Enter your option :";
cout<<"1 .Enter Column size :"<<endl;
cout<<"2.Exit "<<endl;
cin>>x;
switch(x)
{
case 1: cout << "Enter the number of columns: "<<endl ;
cin>>input;
if(input>0)
cout << "The number of columns: is "<<input<<endl ;
else
cout << "Enter the number of columns as integer "<<endl ;
case 2:exit(0);
}
};
return 0;
}
Many of the answers here use the cin's built in filter. While these work to prevent a char or string from being entered, they do not prevent a float entry. When a float is entered, it is accepted and the decimal value remains in the buffer. This creates problems with later requests to cin. The following code will check the cin error flag and also prevent float inputs.
*note: The cin.ignore statement may require some tweaking to fully bullet proof the code.
void main()
{
int myint;
cout<<"Enter an integer: ";
intInput(myint);
}
void intInput(int &x)
{
bool valid = true; //flag used to exit loop
do
{
cin>>x;
//This 'if' looks for either of the following conditions:
//cin.fail() returned 'true' because a char was entered.
//or
//cin.get()!='\n' indicating a float was entered.
if(cin.fail() || cin.get()!='\n')
{
cout<<"Error. The value you entered was not an integer."<<endl;
cout<<"Please enter an integer: ";
cin.clear(); //clears cin.fail flag
cin.ignore(256,'\n'); //clears cin buffer
valid = false; //sets flag to repeat loop
}
else valid = true; //sets flag to exit loop
}while(valid == false);
}
This is a very basic solution to your problem that newer programers should find useful for people trying to break their programs. Eventually there are more advanced and efficient ways to do this.
int input;
int count = 1;
while(count == 1){ //this is just a simple looping design
cin >> input;
if(cin.fail()){ //If the input is about to crash your precious program
cin.clear(); //Removes the error message from internal 'fail safe'
cin.ignore(std::numeric_limits<int>::max(), '\n'); //Removes the bad values creating the error in the first place
count = 1; //If there is an error then it refreshes the input function
}
else{
count--; //If there is no error, then your program can continue as normal
}
}
Here is the advanced code: stackoverflow.com/questions/2256527/