Bool function question

[gjack72]

Fairly new with C++ and I have a question on checking 2 char array's to see if they match. I have the user input an 'eye' color which is eye, and then it compares it to 'e' which is read in from an external file to see if they match or not.
My other bool functions work, but this is the only one working with char arrays.
error msg: expected primary-expression before ']' token.

Here is my code.

<script c++>

bool testEye(char eye[], char e[])
{
     if(strcmp(eye[],e[]))
        return true;
     else
        return false;
}
</script c++>

[Notsosuperhero]

make it like this:

if(strcmp(eye, e) == 0)
{
    return true;
}
else
{
    return false;
}

Have a look here for a better understanding of strcmp.

[gjack72]

Thanks for the help.

I see what I was doing wrong.

gj

[Notsosuperhero]

Also you could do it the C++ way.

assuming that eye and e are std::string, and not char[]

if(eye.compare(e) == 0)
    return true;
else
    return false;

I'm not sure that ::compare is the best way to do it with std::strings but I just began learning them.

Hope that helps.

[Smasher/Devourer]

if(strcmp(eye, e) == 0)
{
    return true;
}
else
{
    return false;
}

This can be written a little simpler:

return strcmp(eye, e) == 0;

[humptydumpty]

Better use strcmpi because it Compares two strings to determine if they are the same. The comparison is not case-sensitive.

as smasher told u write code in that way
like
return strcmpi(eye, e);

that's all no need to check for

strcmpi(eye, e)==0

[Smasher/Devourer]

return strcmpi(eye, e);

This will return incorrect results, since strcmp() and strcmpi() return zero if the two strings are equivalent, and zero indicates false. Also, the original post doesn't contain enough information to know whether using strcmpi() would be appropriate. Perhaps gjack72 wants the results to be case-sensitive.

[humptydumpty]

This will return incorrect results, since strcmp() and strcmpi() return zero if the two strings are equivalent, and zero indicates false. Also, the original post doesn't contain enough information to know whether using strcmpi() would be appropriate. Perhaps gjack72 wants the results to be case-sensitive.

if i used this one
strcmpi(eye, e)==0
it will return only 0 or 1

but in case of

strcmpi(eye, e)

it will return 0,1,-1 which is the return value of strcmpi,or strcmp.and i never said that u r doing anything wrong here

[Smasher/Devourer]

if i used this one
strcmpi(eye, e)==0
it will return only 0 or 1

but in case of

strcmpi(eye, e)

it will return 0,1,-1 which is the return value of strcmpi,or strcmp.and i never said that u r doing anything wrong here

Ah, well of course the return values you're talking about there are not wrong, so long as the programmer changes the way he's interpreting them. But the discussion was regarding a function that returns a bool, so the assumption thus far has been that it returns true if the strings are equivalent and false otherwise. Your way certainly works fine too, as long as you change the return type to int or something similar. But at that point, the whole testEye() function becomes useless; if the original poster wanted that kind of return value, he'd just call strcmp() or strcmpi() directly in his code, instead of wrapping the call in a function that returns a bool.

[exterminator]

On a side note - I guess the function goes by the name stricmp and not strcmpi? Also, that function is not part of the standard. So, its better avoid it. For case-insensitive string comparisons - search in this thread - Help looping my program. Regards.

[Smasher/Devourer]

On a side note - I guess the function goes by the name stricmp and not strcmpi? Also, that function is not part of the standard.

I've always used stricmp() too, but Visual C++ 6.0 seems to like strcmpi(), stricmp(), and _stricmp(). Anyway, you're absolutely right that it's not standard. I should have remembered that.