cin.get() is not working for char array

Question

Hello everyone I have made this simple program but there is some problem in taking input book name the program just skip the cin.get() function and then return 0, and I dont know why it's not working although there are no errors. any help would be appreciated. thank you

#include<iostream>
 using namespace std;
 struct book
 {
 private:
 int bookid;
 char name[30];
 float price;
 public: 
 input()
 {
    cout<<"\n Enter book ID: ";
    cin>>bookid;
 if(bookid<0)
 {
    bookid = -bookid;
 }
    cout<<"\nEnter book title: ";
    cin.get(name,30); // here is the problem
    cout<<"\nEnter book price: ";
    cin>>price;
 }
 display()
 {
    cout<<"\nBook ID: "<<bookid<<"\nbook title: "<<name<<"\nprice: "<<price;
 }
 };

 int main()
 {
 book b1;
 b1.input();
 b1.display();


 return 0;
 }

What's _not working_ specifically? Always post a [MCVE] including all error messages, inputs, expected outputs when asking a question at Stack Overfow. — πάντα ῥεῖ, Dec 15 '16 at 18:25
You question is a dupe of [this](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21567291/why-does-stdgetline-skip-input-after-a-formatted-extraction) but since that one uses `getline` I'm hesitant to close it. I'll let others decide. — NathanOliver, Dec 15 '16 at 18:28
Always provide a [MCVE] including all error messages, input and expected output in your question. Also consider to [take The Tour](http://stackoverflow.com/tour) and read [How to Ask](http://stackoverflow.com/help/on-topic.) — πάντα ῥεῖ, Dec 15 '16 at 18:28

Travis · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-15T18:54:54.153

Try making name a string rather than a character array, then use cin >> name; (for a single-word string) or cin.getline(name); (for a multi-word string). You will have to add #include <string> to the top of your program.

In general, don't use character arrays in C++ (that's more of a C thing).

EDIT:

I think your problem is here:

cin >> bookid; will stop when it detects a '\n' in the input stream, and then leave that \n in the stream. Then, when you call cin.getline(name); right after, the first character it will read is the '\n', and so it will immediately return because "it has read a line." This is a difference between cin >> and cin.getline().

So the solution is to replace cin.getline(name); with

cin.getline();
cin.getline(name);

That way it will get and discard the single '\n' (including any other whitespace that may precede the unwanted '\n') before reading the line actually containing the name.

If you know for a fact that the very next character is '\n' rather than some amount of other whitespace followed by a '\n', then you can just do cin.ignore(); to ignore the very next character, i.e. the '\n'.

@Waleed he is not explaining, he is giving an alternative answer.But his question is why cin.get() is ignored. — kNIG132103, Jan 12 '22 at 12:55

cin.get() is not working for char array

1 Answers1