getline() and cin conflicts

[Illbred]

Hi, I am writing a code that will put names into a map along with the ID numbers of the names (as in; John doe, ID: 23). In order to read the entire name I used the std::getline() function (since it jumps over spaces and terminates input on a new line) but when I get the ID I use a simple cin >> ID.
The problem arises when lower in my program I ask the user to input a name to search for in the database. Since this again can be more than one word I use a getline(), but when I run my program it skips over this step.

I thought this was iffy and when i changed the cin >> ID to a getline statement everything worked out. My question is; is there any way to have cin>> and getline() statements in your code without them compiling. I would really hate to have to write a stringToInto convertion function if i had to use a getline() to retrieve the ID number.

My code follows:

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




class NameID
{
public:
	string name;
	string searchName;
	int ID;
	map<string, int> List;
	map<string, int>::iterator iter;

	//getInput fnc
	//Reads input from user and puts data into std::map
	void getInput()
	{
		cout << "Input into database.";
		cout << endl;
		cout << "Enter name and associated ID number.";
		cout << endl;
		cout << "A blank line ends input.";
		cout << endl;
		cout << endl;
		cout << "Enter name: ";
		getline(cin, name);
		cout << "Enter ID #: ";
		//getline(cin, ID);
		cin >> ID;
		cout << endl;
	}

	//puts item into map.
	void putToMap()
	{
		List[name] = ID;
	}

	//findName fnc
	//Searchs database for name and give name,ID pair.
	void findName()
	{
		cout << "Enter name to search.";
		cout << endl;
		cout << "If name is stored in database, it will be printed out";
		cout << endl;
		cout << "along with the ID #.";
		cout << endl;
		cout << endl;
		cout << "Enter name: ";
		getline(cin,searchName);
		cout << endl;
		cout << "------Data Found-------";
		cout << endl;
		
		cout << List[searchName];
		cout << endl;
	}



};


//main fnc
//runs prog.
int main()
{
	NameID Program;
	Program.getInput();
	Program.putToMap();
	Program.findName();
	//cout << Program.name;
	//cout << Program.ID;
	return 0;
}

Can anybody shed some light on this?

[crei]

Reading numbers in directly with cin is tricky. Just take in the ID as a string, then you can use the atoi function in cstdlib so you don't have to write the strToInt function. Here is the fix:

  void getInput()
  {
    cout << "Input into database.";
    cout << endl;
    cout << "Enter name and associated ID number.";
    cout << endl;
    cout << "A blank line ends input.";
    cout << endl;
    cout << endl;
    cout << "Enter name: ";
    getline(cin, name);
    cout << "Enter ID #: ";
    string tempID;
    getline(cin, tempID);
    ID = atoi (tempID.c_str());
    cout << endl;
  }

Also a suggestion. Why are you mapping names to id? It should probably be the other way around since you want to key by a unique identifier (such as an ID).

Regards

[lmpb17]

If I understand your problem correctly another thing you can do is use the cin.ignore(1) function.

When you use cin.getline it stops reading when it gets to a new line(unless otherwise specified). This causes the newline to be read by the input buffer and it seems that it was skipped. cin.ignore(1) discards the newline.