Lecture 2

Basic Input and Output

 Objectives
• Explain how to communicate to the system while
entering data and displaying output.

• Write simple programs that write information on the

screen.

• Explain how to read a single character and a string.

• Clarify how to convert strings to numerical values and

vice versa.

• Explain how to use the gets() and puts() functions a

programs.
2
 Basic Input and Output
• C++ uses streams to perform input and output
operations.

• A stream is an entity where a program can

either insert or extract characters to/from.

• The standard input and output streams are cin

and cout.

3
 Standard output - cout
Screen

Result

Identifier

cout << value

object
Insertion Operator

4
 Standard output - cout
• cout is the C++ stream object which is defined
to access the standard output.

• cout is used together with insertion operator

<<.

• The library #include<iostream> should

be included in the program to use cout and
cin.

5
 Standard output - cout
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
// prints the string between the quotes
cout<<"This is a string output";
// prints the number 50
cout<<50;
int number = 34;
// prints the value of number variable
cout<<number;
}
6
 Standard output - cout
• The << operator inserts the data that follows it into the stream that
precedes it.
• Example:
– cout<<"This is a string output";
• In this example, it inserted the literal in double quotes into the
standard output stream cout.

• Example:
– cout<<50;
• In this example, it inserted the number 50 into the standard output
stream cout.

• Example:
– int number = 34;
– cout<<number;
• In this example, it inserted the value of variable number into
the standard output stream cout.
7
 Standard output - cout
• When the text is enclosed in double quotes, it is
printed literally.

• If the text is not enclosed with double quotes, it is

interpreted as an identifier and its value is printed.

• Example: the following two statements have different

results.
– cout<<“welcome”;
– welcome = “welcome to C++ programming class”;
– cout<<welcome;

8
 Standard output - cout
• Multiple insertion operations (<<) may be chained in
a single statement.
• Example:
– cout << "This " << " is a " << "single
C++ statement";

• Chaining insertions is useful to mix literals and

variables in a single statement
• Example:
– int num = 3;
– cout << “The value” << num << “ is an integer”;

9
 Standard output - cout
• cout does not crate line breaks automatically.
• Example:
– cout<<“This is the first line of text”;
– cout<<“This is the second line of text”;
• The output of the above two statements will be a
single line.

• New-line character \n can be used to create line

breaks.
• Example:
– cout<<“This is the first line of text\n”;
– cout<<“This is the second line of text”;
10
 Standard output - cout
• Alternatively, the endl manipulator can also be used
to break lines.
• Example:
– cout<<“This is the first line of text”<<endl;
– cout<<“This is the second line of text”;

• Example:
– cout<<“This is the first line of text”;
– cout<<endl<<“This is the second line of
text”;

11
 Standard input - cin

object Identifier
cin >> value

Extraction operator

Keyboard

standard input stream

12
 Standard input - cin
• The C++ stream object defined to access the
standard input (keyboard) is cin.

• cin is used together with the extraction

operator >> followed by a variable where the
extracted data is stored.

• Example:
– int number;
– cout<<“Please enter a number ”;
– cin>>number;
13
 Standard input - cin
• In the previous example:
– The first statement declares a variable of type int
called number.
– The second statement displays a message.
– The third statement extracts from cin a value to be
stored in it.

• The program will wait for the user to enter some

sequence with the keyboard.

• Press enter key to transmit the value to the

program.
14
 Standard input - cin
• The extraction operation on cin uses the type of the variable after
the >> operator to determine type of value.

• If the data type is integer, the format expected is a series of digits

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
int num;
cout << "Please enter an integer value: ";
cin >> num;
cout << "The value you entered is " <<num;
}

15
 Standard input - cin
• Extraction on cin can be chained to get more
than one data items in a single statement.
• Example:
– cin >> number1 >> number2;
• The above statement can be written as two
separate statements.
• Example:
– cin >> number1;
– cin >> number2;
• In both cases, user has to input two values, one
for each variable.
• A space is used to separate two consecutive input
operations.
16
 Standard input - cin
• Example: Reading a single character
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
char name;
cout<<"Enter the first name ";
cin>>name;
cout<<"Your name is "<<name;
}
17
 Standard input - cin
• Example: Reading a string
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
char name[6];
cout<<"Enter the first name ";
cin>>name;
cout<<"Your name is "<<name;
}
18
 cin and strings
• The extraction operator >> can be used on cin to get strings of
characters.
• Example:
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{

string fname;
cout<<"Enter the first name ";
cin>>fname;
cout<<"First name is " <<fname;
}

• cin extraction always extract a single word.

• cin extraction always considers spaces as terminating the value
being extracted.
19
 cin and strings
• getline() function can be used to get an entire line
from cin.
• It takes the stream cin as first argument, and the string
variable as second.
• Example:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int main ()
{
string fullname;
cout << "What is your name? ";
getline (cin, fullname);
cout << "My name is " << fullname;
}
20
 gets() function
• Function is used to get a string.

• It collects a string of characters terminated by

a new line.

• gets()allows input strings to contain certain

white space characters.

• gets()returns when it encounters a new line;

everything up to the new line is copied into the
parameter. 21
 puts() function
• This function can be used to display a string.

• puts()function copies the null-terminated

string of the identifier used as an argument.

• The header file #include<stdio.h>

should be include in the program when using
the gets()and puts()function.

22
 Example 3: Reading a String
• Example: Reading a string
#include <iostream>
#include<stdio.h>
using namespace std;

int main ()
{
char name[20];
cout<<"Please enter a name “;
gets(name);
puts(name);
}

23
 stringstream
• The standard header #include<sstream>
defines a type called stringstream that allows a
string to be treated as a stream.

• It allows extraction operations from strings in

the same way as they are performed on cin.

• This feature is useful to convert strings to

numerical values and vice versa.
24
 stringstream
• Example - to extract an integer from a string
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>
using namespace std;

int main ()
{
string myid ("000008945");
int studid;
stringstream(myid) >> studid;
cout<<studid;
}
25
 stringstream - extract an integer from a string
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>
using namespace std;

int main ()
{
string mystring;
float price=0;
int quantity=0;

cout << "Enter price: ";

getline (cin,mystring);
stringstream(mystring) >> price;
cout << "Enter quantity: ";
getline (cin,mystring);
stringstream(mystring) >> quantity;
cout << "Total price: " << price*quantity;
}
26
 Standard input and output
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main ()
{
float price=0;
int quantity=0;

cout << "Enter price: ";

cin >> price;

cout << "Enter quantity: ";

cin >> quantity;
cout << "Total price: " << price*quantity;
}

27
 stringstream
• In this example, we acquire numeric values from the
standard input indirectly.

• Instead of extracting numeric values directly from cin,

we get lines from it into a string object (mystring), and
then we extract the values from this string into the
variables price and quantity.

• Once these are numerical values, arithmetic operations

can be performed on them.

• This allows the input process to be what the user

expects, and gaining more control over the
transformation of its content into useful data by the
program. 28