Banking Software

[Jeff123]

Hi,
I am having some trouble with a project I'm doing for school. I am trying to write some bank software. The part I am having trouble with is entering a new customer's information and saving it. I have a struct called customer with all of the info I need in it. I need to be able to save that to a file and add more later, or search for a customer by name or account number. My problem is, I don't know a good way to do this. We aren't allowed to use classes in this assignment, but we can use vectors. I have been trying an array of structs, but I don't know how to add a new struct to an existing array in the next available spot. I don't even know if this is a good way to do this. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jeff

[hamsterman]

You can't use classes but you can use structs? You know they're the same thing in c++..
Anyway, if you can use vectors then have a vector of structs and just push_back stuff when you need to.

[Jeff123]

Okay thanks. I haven't seen any vector examples for anything other than int, so if my struct is called customer, then can I do something like:
vector<customer> customerInfo ?

[hamsterman]

yes

[Jeff123]

Awesome, thanks for your help!

[Jeff123]

Okay, I thought I had it, but I cant seem to populate(?) my vector. Every time I try to add a new struct, it seem to overwrite the other one. Any suggestions?

void addCustomer()
{
	//I saw this in an example and thought it was necessary, I don't know if it is.
        string tempFirstName;
	string tempLastName;
	int tempAccountNo;
	int tempPIN;
	float tempBalance;

	vector<Customer> customerList;
	
	cout << "New customer's first name: ";
	cin >> tempFirstName;
	cout << endl <<"Last name: ";
	cin >> tempLastName;
	cout << endl << "Enter the new customer's five digit account number: ";
	cin >> tempAccountNo;
	cout << endl << "Enter the customer's Personal ID Number: ";
	cin >> tempPIN;
	cout << endl << "Enter the customer's beginning balance: ";
	cin >> tempBalance;

	Customer a;
	a.accountNo = tempAccountNo;
	a.balance = tempBalance;
	a.firstName = tempFirstName;
	a.lastName = tempLastName;
	a.PIN = tempPIN;

	customerList.push_back(a);

	//I did this just to see if it was being overwritten
        cout << customerList[0].firstName;
	
}

My struct looks like this:

struct Customer
{
    std::string firstName;
    std::string lastName;
    int accountNo;
    float balance;
    int PIN;
};

Thanks again,
Jeff

[acorn]

there is nothing wrong with your code. after you push_back onto the vector you can update the data then push_back onto the vector again. refer them by index depending how many you have.

cout << customerList[0].firstName << endl;
cout << customerList[1].firstName << endl;

ect


i am guessing that you want to continue to enter data and load it into the vector so create a loop with an option to exit.

[Jeff123]

The only problem with the loop is I don't want to do it all at once. There are a lot of functions in this program , and I want to be able to go back to the menu after I've added a customer, do something else and then come back to add another. So, it sounds like the best thing to do would be to add a variable that is just a counter to keep track of how many customers I've added already, correct?

Thanks for all of your help,
Jeff

[hamsterman]

The problem with your code is that you keep recreating your vector (since it's a local variable)

It should be

void addCustomer(vector<Customer>& vec){
   Customer a;
   cin >> a.name;
   vec.push_back(a);
}
int main(){
   std::vector<Customer> vec;
   while(true){
      //some control should be added here..
      addCustomer(vec);
   }
}

[Jeff123]

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks again hamsterman!