Im hoping this can be a simple fix :/

[Scubatoad]

My Problem: I am trying to take a large .txt document and find and remove duplicate words within the text. However, the .txt document was a novel and it contains strings with periods and commas tagged on to the end of them. I am trying to remove those characters so I just have letters left.

Here is the function I wrote to do this:

string lowercase(string data)
{
string output;

for (int i=0; i<data.length(); i++)
{
if ( data[i] == 'a'||'b'||'c'||'d'||'e'||'f'||'g'||'h'||'i'||'j'||'k'||'l'||'m'||'n'||'o'||'p'||'q'||'r'||'s'||'t'||'u'||'v'||'w'||'x'||'y'||'z'||'A'||'B'||'C'||'D'||'E'||'F'||'G'||'H'||'I'||'J'||'K'||'L'||'M'||'N'||'O'||'P'||'Q'||'R'||'S'||'T'||'U'||'V'||'W'||'X'||'Y'||'Z')
{
output = output + (char) tolower(data[i]);
}

}

return output;

The program builds and runs but the strings such as ( happy.) still output "happy." It is as if the if statement never even does the comparison. I'm hoping that I am jsut missing something small. Thanks a lot!

[Bazzy]

the condition is wrong, it should be if (data[i] == 'a' || data[i] == 'b' || ... ) but you can simply use if ( isalpha(data[i]) )

[Scubatoad]

Thanks a ton! That fixed it...

[ingenioushax]

Instead of using all that data[i] information, you could use half that information just by taking and using the function tolower(), and where () is, use a variable to hold the letters your grabbing. so something like
tolower(letter)

[Bazzy]

isalpha works both for lower and upper case

[Gumbercules]

if you were wondering, the problem was that you can't compare that way. all the letters are integers greater than one, so it's like says if (data[i] == 'a' || true...) which is always true. you would have to do if (data[i] == 'a' || data[i] == 'b' ...) or if ((data[i] >= 'a' && data[i] <= 'z') || (data[i] >= 'A' && data[i] <= 'Z'))

but you'll be left with letters without spaces or anything distinguishing the words.