Why does the loop iterate infinitely?
Let's take this example
int a;
std::cin >> a;
std::cout << "Entered: " << a;
Now let's test it with different inputs
with int
5
Entered: 5
10
Entered: 10
Yes just as we would expect, but what happens when you enter a char?
with char
r
Entered: 0
f
Entered: 0
Why does this happen?
When you declare the variable int, and then do std::cin >> , you are telling the input method that the user will enter an integer, but when it doesn't get what it expected, it will fail. C++ will not implicitly convert the value of char into int. Hence, you get strange results.
How to solve this?
As I have mentioned earlier, it fails. When this fails you can catch it this way
if (!(std::cin >> a))
{
std::cout << "Invalid input ! \n";
}
We're saying, if the input fails, show the message.
let's test this new code.
int a;
if (!(std::cin >> a))
{
std::cout << "Invalid input !\n";
}
else
{
std::cout << "Entered: " << a;
}
5
Entered: 5
r
Invalid input !
How to print char value of the int?
If you want to just print the ASCII value of the entered number, you need to cast the value into char.
You can do
int num = 48;
char character_value = num;
Here C++ will implicitly convert char into int.
But if you need a safer type of conversion, prefer using static_cast<>.
The syntax looks like this
int a = 5;
char character_value = static_cast<char>(a);
Static cast in C++
Type casting in C++
Dealing with invalid input in C++