getline() skipping first even after clear()

Derp picture Derp · Aug 29, 2012 · Viewed 31.9k times · Source

So I have a function that keeps skipping over the first getline and straight to the second one. I tried to clear the buffer but still no luck, what's going on?

void getData(char* strA, char* strB)
{
    cout << "Enter String 1: ";               // Shows this line
    cin.clear();
    cin.getline(strA, 50);                    // 50 is the character limit, Skipping Input

    cout << endl << "Enter String 2: ";       // Showing This Line
    cin.clear();
    cin.getline(strB, 50);                   // Jumps Straight to this line
}

Answer

user586399 picture user586399 · Aug 29, 2012

Make sure you didn't use cin >> str. before calling the function. If you use cin >> str and then want to use getline(cin, str), you must call cin.ignore() before.

string str;
cin >> str;
cin.ignore(); // ignores \n that cin >> str has lefted (if user pressed enter key)
getline(cin, str);

In case of using c-strings:

char buff[50];
cin.get(buff, 50, ' ');
cin.ignore();
cin.getline(buff, 50);

ADD: Your wrong is not probably in the function itself, but rather before calling the function. The stream cin have to read only a new line character \n' in first cin.getline.