Beginners mistake

[Dusto]

This is a completed homework assignment for which I received full credit:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int main()

{
    string firstName;
    string number;
    string animal;
    string country;
    string secondAnimal;
    string color;

    cout << "Please enter your first name: ";
    cin >> firstName;
    cout << "\nHello, " << firstName << "! Welcome to funny headlines!" << "\n" << endl;
    cout << "I'm going to ask you five questions." << "\n" << endl;

    cout << "1.) Please think of a number greater than one. What is it? ";
    cin >> number;
    cout << "2.) Think of a animal. What animal are you thinking of? ";
    cin >> animal;
    cout << "3.) Think of a country. What is it? ";
    cin >> country;
    cout << "4.) Think of another animal. What is it? ";
    cin >> secondAnimal;
    cout << "5.) What color comes to mind? ";
    cin >> color;

    cout << "\nGreat! Here are your funny headlines:" << endl;
    cout << "\nTOP STORY: " << animal << " announces US presidential bid with high hopes." << endl;
    cout << "\nGreat Lakes turn " << color << ". Authorities believe " << secondAnimal <<"s to blame." << endl;
    cout << "\nEnd of the world in " << number << " days? It's true, says Pope." << endl;
    cout << "\nCanada declares war on " << country << ". Authorities believe " << secondAnimal << "s to blame. " << endl;

    return 0;
}

However, one little tidbit is bothering me. I noticed that when I put "United States" for country, since there is a space it takes "United" and then jumps to the next question. Reading chapter three right now states that getline() can fix this problem, if I'm reading this correctly. For example:

string movieName;
cout << "Enter movie name: ";
getline(cin, movieName);
cout << endl;

So I went back to try this:

    cout << "3.) Think of a country. What is it? ";
    getline(cin, country);
    cout << "4.) Think of another animal. What is it? ";

as well as several other variations:

    cout << "3.) Think of a country. What is it? ";
    cin >> country;
    getline(cin, country);
    cout << "4.) Think of another animal. What is it? ";

    cout << "3.) Think of a country. What is it? ";
    getline(cin, country);
    cout << endl;
    cout << "4.) Think of another animal. What is it? ";

and it is still not doing what I want it to. It will ask the question and skip to the next, not asking for any input for the string "country" whatsoever, or just pick up " States" and apply it to one string, albeit the wrong one. Thoughts?

[giblit]

when you use operator >> for input it will leave a new line in the buffer you must ignore that before using getline because getline reads until it finds a newline therefore it would not read anything.

cin >> something;

//http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/istream/istream/ignore/?kw=cin.ignore
//http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/limits/numeric_limits/?kw=numeric_limits 
//^ you need to include limits --> #include <limits>

cin.ignore( std::numeric_limits<streamsize>::max() , '\n' );

getline( cin , something_else );

Here is a link that might explain better:

http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/articles/6046/

[long double main]

Your last input operation, cin >> animal;, leaves a newline in the input buffer (remember, you had to press Enter to send the input to the program -- that button press translates to a '\n' character in the input buffer).

What getline does is read input until it reaches a newline character (which is discarded). Because of your cin >> animal; line, which left a newline character in the input buffer, the first thing getline finds is that newline character, so it eats it and moves on before you ever get a chance to move your fingers.

For a quick fix: put cin.ignore(); or cin.get(); immediately after cin >> animal;. This will ignore/read one character from the input buffer (which should hopefully be the extra newline character).

A better fix is to put cin.ignore(numeric_limits<streamsize>::max(), '\n'); after cin >> animal; (you'll also need to #include <limits> for that).
That way, cin will discard all characters left in the input buffer, until it reaches (and discards) a newline character.
So, if you were to enter, for instance, "Giant panda" for the animal, it would read the "Giant" and then discard the " panda\n" (which, although it may not be what you want, at least it's better than the animal name being "Giant" and the country name becoming " panda" without asking you first).
(In comparison, if you just used the "quick fix" above, the cin.ignore(); would have only eaten one character (the space after the "Giant"), so it would automatically read the remaining "panda" into the country variable.)

[Dusto]

Interesting. Thanks