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Standard Input

cin is the standard input stream in C++ that allows user input from the keyboard. Values can be extracted from cin using the extraction operator >> and stored in variables. For example, "cin >> age;" will extract input and store it in the int variable age. The type of the variable determines how cin interprets the input. If the input cannot be converted to the expected type, the extraction fails silently without setting the variable's value. Programs should check for invalid input to handle errors appropriately rather than relying on default behavior.

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41 views

Standard Input

cin is the standard input stream in C++ that allows user input from the keyboard. Values can be extracted from cin using the extraction operator >> and stored in variables. For example, "cin >> age;" will extract input and store it in the int variable age. The type of the variable determines how cin interprets the input. If the input cannot be converted to the expected type, the extraction fails silently without setting the variable's value. Programs should check for invalid input to handle errors appropriately rather than relying on default behavior.

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icul1
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Standard input (cin)

In most program environments, the standard input by default is the keyboard, and the C++
stream object defined to access it is cin.

For formatted input operations, cin is used together with the extraction operator, which is
written as >> (i.e., two "greater than" signs). This operator is then followed by the variable where
the extracted data is stored. For example:
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int age;
cin >> age;


The first statement declares a variable of type int called age, and the second extracts from cin a
value to be stored in it. This operation makes the program wait for input from cin; generally, this
means that the program will wait for the user to enter some sequence with the keyboard. In this
case, note that the characters introduced using the keyboard are only transmitted to the program
when the ENTER (or RETURN) key is pressed. Once the statement with the extraction operation
on cin is reached, the program will wait for as long as needed until some input is introduced.

The extraction operation on cin uses the type of the variable after the >> operator to determine
how it interprets the characters read from the input; if it is an integer, the format expected is a
series of digits, if a string a sequence of characters, etc.
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// i/o example

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main ()
{
int i;
cout << "Please enter an integer value:
";
cin >> i;
cout << "The value you entered is " <<
i;
cout << " and its double is " << i*2 <<
".\n";
return 0;
}
Please enter an integer value: 702
The value you entered is 702 and its double
is 1404.


As you can see, extracting from cin seems to make the task of getting input from the standard
input pretty simple and straightforward. But this method also has a big drawback. What happens
in the example above if the user enters something else that cannot be interpreted as an integer?
Well, in this case, the extraction operation fails. And this, by default, lets the program continue
without setting a value for variable i, producing undetermined results if the value of i is used
later.

This is very poor program behavior. Most programs are expected to behave in an expected
manner no matter what the user types, handling invalid values appropriately. Only very simple
programs should rely on values extracted directly from cin without further checking. A little
later we will see how stringstreams can be used to have better control over user input.
Extractions on cin can also be chained to request more than one datum in a single statement:
cin >> a >> b;


This is equivalent to:
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cin >> a;
cin >> b;


In both cases, the user is expected to introduce two values, one for variable a, and another for
variable b. Any kind of space is used to separate two consecutive input operations; this may
either be a space, a tab, or a new-line character.

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