How To Implement Getline In C++?

Handling strings is crucial part when it comes to programming. In this article we will learn about Getline in C++ a standard library function that lets you do wonders with strings.

Following points will be covered in this article,

• Getline function
• Sample Code Syntax
• Getline character array

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Getline In C++

While using C++, std::cin does not support accepting multiple lines in one go, to do this we have some in-built functions like getline. To accept a string or a line of input stream as input, we have an in-built function called getline(). This function is under the <string> header file.

It accepts all the strings until a newline character is encountered.

Syntax:

There are 2 ways to use a getline() function:

istream& getline (istream& is, string& str, char delim);

The “is” is an object of the stream class. Where to read the input stream from is told to the function by this “is” object. str is the string object where the string is stored. delim is the delimiting character.

Example

getline (cin, str,”hi”);

In this example, the getline function will read until the new line character is found.

The second way,

istream& getline (istream& is, string& str);

This is the same as the above syntax but we do not have a delimiting character

Example

getline (cin, str);

In this example, the getline function will read all the input the user has to input. This was is widely preferred by the programmers.

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Sample Code Syntax

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
string s;
cout << "Please enter a string: n";
getline (cin, s);
cout << "The Input string you have entered is,"<<endl<<s;
return 0;
}

Output:

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Getline character array

For character array, we use a slightly different syntax,

istream& getline(char*, int size)

We have a size of the array as a delimiter and the input can’t cross that size.

Example

cin.getline(str, 20);

We call the getline function by using the instream object called cin. We pass the length of the array. This is mainly used when we have a char array with a specified size.

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