Re: Avoiding Input Failure in C++

From:
James Kanze <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Sat, 27 Dec 2008 01:28:59 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID:
<cacb8f3b-d79b-4afe-99d1-665920e87836@b41g2000pra.googlegroups.com>
On Dec 26, 8:30 pm, Kai-Uwe Bux <jkherci...@gmx.net> wrote:

Marcel M=FCller wrote:

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 ) {


Just curious, but what's wrong with just:
    if ( stream.get() != EOF ) ...
Saves the extra variable, and IMHO, it better says what you are
trying to do.

It also has slightly different semantics; your version will
skip trailing spaces before trying to read the character; mine
won't. If skipping trailing spaces is desired (often a good
idea), then throw in a ">> std::ws" somewhere before the get.

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