homework...

[kybbles]

i am baffled i dont know how this can happen. it wont let me use the << operator.


#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
#include <iomanip>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
struct menuItemType{//struct
string menuItem;
int price;
};
int index;
menuItemType menuList[8];

ifstream inFile;
inFile.open("menu_data");

for(index = 0; index <8; index++)
inFile >> menuList[index].menuItem
>> menuList[index].price;

cout << menuList[0];

system("PAUSE");
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

everything works except for the cout statment.

any help will be appreciated.

[Albatross]

You can't just output a struct through cout. You need to do something like menuList[0].menuItem. But you knew that.

EDIT: It's funny how you got it right the first few times, but not when you were outputting it...

-Albatross

[kybbles]

heh i can see how that would be funny. so all i have to do is menuList[0].menuItem and it will print to the screen? or am i missing something.

how can i output to the screen?

[jsmith]

One way is to model it exactly after your inFile >> line.

Or, a better way is to write operator<< for your struct and then leave the line as is.

struct menuItemType {
    friend std::ostream& operator<<( std::ostream& os, const menuItemType& m ) {
        return os << m.menuItem << ' ' << m.price;
    }
};

[kybbles]

geeze; i really dont understand. i feel pretty stupid. my teacher hasnt told us about those statements or keywords. looks like jibberish.

what do you mean by modeling?

ugh sorry for this. i am just really hung up on this.

[Albatross]

jsmith's solution is better by a long shot, but we want you to understand before you try the better solutions. You have to learn how to use a bubble sort before you can use a smoothsort.

You can't output the whole struct; you can only output one element of it using the extraction operator (<<) as it is. I don't recommend modifying it just yet, which is jsmith's solution. Instead, get that one element you want to output using the . operator to put on the right side of the << operator.

-Albatross

[kybbles]

like this?

for(index = 0; index <8; index++)
inFile >> menuList[index].menuItem
>> menuList[index].price;
<< menuList[0].menuItem;

sorry if i am a bother. ive just been drilling into this book and to no avail.

thanks for you kind helping hand.

[Albatross]

That was actually correct what you had earlier, regarding those lines. The error was in the line with your cout statement.

-Albatross

[kybbles]

okay well i got the program to load.
using cout << menuList[0].menuItem;

only thing is that it doesnt print anything.

is this because the file data is not being read in?

[Albatross]

Perhaps menu_data doesn't exist. You should make a statement that checks this.

http://cplusplus.com/reference/iostream/ifstream/

-Albatross

[kybbles]

i tried this

for(index = 0; index <8; index++)
inFile >> menuList[index].menuItem
>> menuList[index].price;
cout << menuList[index].menuItem;

i thought it would work.
it does print to the screen, but its in some archaic characters. and says that the drivers are not working.


--okay im not getting those archaic looking characters anymore
instead i am getting a bunch of nonsense numbers istead of the menu items..