Telephone directory help

[silent15]

I am having a bit of trouble writing a function for a telephone directory. I need to create a program that upon prompt of first and last name it needs to output the corresponding number from a dat file or indicates that the name isnt in the file. then after each lookup i need to ask whether to look up another number or exit.

this is the code I have so far, I am not very good with functions so...
[HTML]
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <fstream>
#include <iomanip>

using namespace std;

string number( string first, string last);
void phone(string first, string last, string& phone);

int main()
{

//Declare
string name;
string number;
ifstream phoneIn;
string fname;
string first;
string last;
string phone;
string fullname;
float x;
char s;
string findname;

//Open Input File

phoneIn.open("p hone.dat");

if (!phoneIn)
{
cout << "Unable to Open Input File." << endl;
return 1;
}


{
//Prompt for First and Lastname
cout << "Enter Owner's First name or type s or S to exit" <<endl;
cin >> first;
cout << "Enter Owner's Last name or type s or S to exit." << endl;
cin >> last;

findname = first + " " + last;

cout << findname << " Phone Number is: " << number(findname ) << endl;
cin.get();
cin.get();
return 0;
}

void phone()
{
while (phoneIn)
{
phoneIn >> first >> last >> number;
fullname = first + " " + last;
cout << fullname << " " << number << endl;
phone[fullname] = number;
}
return;
}



return 0;
}
[/HTML]

thanks in advance

[weaknessforcats]

You call number(findname ) but there is no number() function. There is a
phone() function that isn't used.

When you search your data file, out need to re-position to the beginning foe each search otherwise the second search will resume where the first one left off.

I would use cin.getline() to fetch the disc records one at a time. That way you can be certain that the first name and alst name are in the same record. The >> operator does not insure that. All it does is fetch the next item, wherever it is. You might consider opening the file in the phone() function so ti positions to the beginning for each search. Use a return type to indicate a) the file didn;t open, b) the search was successful, c)the search was unsuccessful. The return values can be test in main() where the call was made.

Consider using enums for these return values rather than hard-coded ones.

The phone() function has not arguments so it can't see phoneIn defined in main(). It needs an ifstream& argument.

Post again when you are farther along.