173
votes
#include <string>

std::string input;
std::cin >> input;

The user wants to enter "Hello World". But cin fails at the space between the two words. How can I make cin take in the whole of Hello World?

I'm actually doing this with structs and cin.getline doesn't seem to work. Here's my code:

struct cd
{
    std::string CDTitle[50];
    std::string Artist[50];
    int number_of_songs[50];
};

std::cin.getline(library.number_of_songs[libNumber], 250);

This yields an error. Any ideas?

8
You shouldn't edit your questions to ask new questions like that. The reason is that people have already given answers to your original question and now those answers seem out of context. If your original question has already been answered just start a new question to avoid confusion. - Pete
It's apparent after a little examination, but could you please add a declaration for the variable library so that it's clear that it is of the type cd - chandsie
sorry guys, this was done in haste, I'll repost this. - dukevin
If you're going to repost it by way of a replacement, please flag the question for deletion by a mod. - Lightness Races in Orbit
In your update, you're trying to getline into an int. Of course that fails. - Ben Voigt

8 Answers

121
votes

You have to use cin.getline():

char input[100];
cin.getline(input,sizeof(input));
248
votes

It doesn't "fail"; it just stops reading. It sees a lexical token as a "string".

Use std::getline:

int main()
{
   std::string name, title;

   std::cout << "Enter your name: ";
   std::getline(std::cin, name);

   std::cout << "Enter your favourite movie: ";
   std::getline(std::cin, title);

   std::cout << name << "'s favourite movie is " << title;
}

Note that this is not the same as std::istream::getline, which works with C-style char buffers rather than std::strings.

Update

Your edited question bears little resemblance to the original.

You were trying to getline into an int, not a string or character buffer. The formatting operations of streams only work with operator<< and operator>>. Either use one of them (and tweak accordingly for multi-word input), or use getline and lexically convert to int after-the-fact.

57
votes

The Standard Library provides an input function called ws, which consumes whitespace from an input stream. You can use it like this:

std::string s;
std::getline(std::cin >> std::ws, s);
31
votes

Use :

getline(cin, input);

the function can be found in

#include <string>
14
votes

You want to use the .getline function in cin.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main () {
  char name[256], title[256];

  cout << "Enter your name: ";
  cin.getline (name,256);

  cout << "Enter your favourite movie: ";
  cin.getline (title,256);

  cout << name << "'s favourite movie is " << title;

  return 0;
}

Took the example from here. Check it out for more info and examples.

5
votes

THE C WAY

You can use gets function found in cstdio(stdio.h in c):

#include<cstdio>
int main(){

char name[256];
gets(name); // for input
puts(name);// for printing 
}

THE C++ WAY

gets is removed in c++11.

[Recommended]:You can use getline(cin,name) which is in string.h or cin.getline(name,256) which is in iostream itself.

#include<iostream>
#include<string>
using namespace std;
int main(){

char name1[256];
string name2;
cin.getline(name1,256); // for input
getline(cin,name2); // for input
cout<<name1<<"\n"<<name2;// for printing
}
5
votes

How do I read a string from input?

You can read a single, whitespace terminated word with std::cin like this:

#include<iostream>
#include<string>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
    cout << "Please enter a word:\n";

    string s;
    cin>>s;

    cout << "You entered " << s << '\n';
}

Note that there is no explicit memory management and no fixed-sized buffer that you could possibly overflow. If you really need a whole line (and not just a single word) you can do this:

#include<iostream>
#include<string>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
    cout << "Please enter a line:\n";

    string s;
    getline(cin,s);

    cout << "You entered " << s << '\n';
}
2
votes

I rather use the following method to get the input:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

int main(void) {
    string name;

    cout << "Hello, Input your name please: ";
    getline(cin, name);

    return 0;
}

It's actually super easy to use rather than defining the total length of array for a string which contains a space character.