Convert a letter to its ascii decimal form - c++

Question

i am in a basic programming class and know practically nothing about programming, we are using c++ and my current project is to pull up the console and do the following
input a letter and output its ascii decimal equivalent
input a number between 33 and 254 and output its letter equivalent
input a lower case letter and output itscapital
input a number of hours and output the number of minutes
input a number greater than 60 and output the number of hours and minutes
this is the work i have so far
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
void main ()
{
cout<<"Assignment 2"<<endl;
char somechar;
int charval;
int input_number;
char output_letter2;
char input_lower_letter;
char output_upper_letter;
int input_hours;
int output_minutes;
int input_minutes2;
int output_hours2;
int output_remainder_minutes;
cout<<"Enter a letter"<<endl;
cin>>somechar>>endl;
cout<< somechar='a';
int charval = somechar;
printf("%c = %d\n",somechar,charval);
system("pause");
}
any tips and help are deeply appreciated

Answer 1

One crucial lesson (which they never seem to teach in school) is to start with a very simple program, get it working perfectly, then build up, testing at every step.
Your code doesn't compile. Let's strip your code down and start from scratch:
void main()
{
}
This doesn't compile. Fix it:
int main()
{
return(0);
}
Now add some output:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
cout << "Assignment 2" << endl;
return(0);
}
So far, so good. Now input:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
cout << "Assignment 2" << endl;
char somechar;
cout << "Enter a letter" << endl;
cin >> somechar >> endl;
return(0);
}
This doesn't compile. Fix it.
And so on. See how it works?

Answer 2

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main() {
char a ='a';
cout << a << " => integer: " << (int)(a) << endl;
int i = 98;
cout << i << " => character: " << (char)(i) << endl;
char b='b';
cout << b <<" => lower: " << (char)(b+('a'-'A')) << endl;
char c='c';
cout << c << " => upper: " << (char)(c-('a'-'A')) << endl;
int hours = 15;
cout << hours << " hours => minutes: " << hours * 60 << endl;
int minutes = 75;
cout << minutes << " minutes => hours:minutes: " << minutes/60 << ":" << minutes % 60 << endl;
system("PAUSE");
return 0;
}

Answer 3

For this you can take a look at casting. To cast a character (char) to an integer ASCII value, you have to cast an int on that char value. For example:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main() {
char myvalue;
cout<<"Enter a character: ";
cin>>myvalue;
cout<<endl<<"The ASCII value is: "<<(int)myvalue<<endl;
return 0;
}
Now because this is homework, I wont finish the steps for you, but it should be pretty straight forward from here.
For more information about casting, I highly suggest: http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/typecasting/