Problem with getline()

[galiwocky]

I am working on a program that counts the votes of N candidates and print the winner and votes received. Here is the input format:

The input begins with a positive integer M which indicates the number of cases to process. Each case starts with a number N which indicates the total number of candidates in that case. This is followed by N candidate names, occupying one line each. This is followed by the total number of ballots B, which is then followed by B ballots. Each ballot is actually a number from 1 to N. A value 1 indicates a vote for the first candidate, 2 for the second candidate, and so on.

For example:

1
3
Mark Zuckerberg
Larry Page
Steve Jobs
15
2 1 2 3 2 3 3 1 1 1 2 3 3 3 1

The output should look like this:

Election #1 :
Steve Jobs (6)

My problem is getting the candidate names. I used getline(). Here's my code snippet:

cin >> M;
	int N;
	while (idx < M)
	{
		cin >> N;
		int i = 0;
		string candidate[N];
		while (i < N)
		{
			getline(cin, candidate[i]);
			i++;
		}
		cin >> ballot;
		i = 0;
		int vote[ballot];
		while (i < ballot)
		{
			cin >> vote[i];
			i++;
		}
		
		process(N, candidate, ballot, vote, idx+1);
		idx++;
	}

When I tried the sample input above, it resulted into this (I used input redirection in command prompt and wrote the input on a file):

Election #1 :
0x22fe20 (2147344384)

I tried to print the candidate name that was read for every iteration so I can get a hint of what's wrong and it seems that only the first two names were read and the output was printed immediately, resulting into a wrong one. I guess the other values succeeding it were not read, that's why.

Test

while (i < N)
		{
			getline(cin, candidate[i]);
			cout << candidate[i] << endl;
			i++;
		}

Test Output

Mark Zuckerberg
Larry Page
Election #1 :
0x22fe20 (2147344384)

What could be the problem in here? I'm guessing it's in the getline() part. How can I fix it? Any suggestions? Thanks a lot.

[jorz]

what is in the function process ??

[galiwocky]

Sir, here's the code for the function.

void process(int N, string candidate[], int ballot, int vote[], int election)
{
	int candidate_tally[N];
	for (int i = 0; i < ballot; i++)
		candidate_tally[ vote[i] - 1 ]++;

	int max = *max_element(candidate_tally,candidate_tally+N);
	cout << "Election #" << election << " :\n";
	for (int i = 0; i < N; i++)
	{
		if (candidate_tally[i] == max)
			cout << candidate << " (" << max << ")\n";
	}
}