Re: Avoiding Input Failure in C++

From:
Kai-Uwe Bux <jkherciueh@gmx.net>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Fri, 26 Dec 2008 20:30:36 +0100
Message-ID:
<gj3bcs$uav$1@news.doubleSlash.org>
Marcel M?ller wrote:

Hi,

orgthingy wrote:

so how can I avoid input failure? ..to those who are confused by my
question, i mean how to avoid getting double-input into an int variable?
and so on


In good old C you can write

size_t n = -1;
int i;
sscanf(input, "%i%n", &i, &n);
if (n == strlen(input))
   // It was an int and nothing but an int.
else
   // Invalid input

This is reliable, at least for numeric types.


Something similar can be done using stringstreams:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>
#include <stdexcept>

struct read_error : public std::runtime_error {

  read_error ( std::string const & what_arg )
    : std::runtime_error( what_arg )
  {}

};

template < typename T >
T read ( std::string const & word ) {
  std::istringstream stream ( word );
  T result;
  if ( stream >> result ) {
    char dummy;
    if ( stream >> dummy ) {
      throw ( read_error( "leftover characters" ) );
    }
    return ( result );
  } else {
    throw ( read_error( "conversion failed" ) );
  }
}

int main ( void ) {
  std::string word;
  while ( std::cin >> word ) {
    try {
      int i = read<int>( word );
      std::cout << "int = " << i << std::endl;
    }
    catch ( read_error const & e ) {
      std::cout << e.what() << std::endl;
    }
  }
}

Best

Kai-Uwe Bux

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