Help with getline

[Tchawa]

I'm trying to get an array of names stored into a data structure, but I keep getting this odd error of C2661

(error C2661: 'std::basic_istream<_Elem,_Traits>::getline' : no overloaded function takes 1 arguments
with
[
_Elem=char,
_Traits=std::char_traits<char>
]
)

I can't figure out how to fix this error, any help would be appreciated.(code included for reference)

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
 
struct StudentRecords
{
   char name;
};
 
void main()
{
StudentRecords student[5];
   for (int s = 0; s < 2; s++)
   {
   cout << "Enter student name ----> ";
   cin.getline(student[s].name );
   cout << endl;
}

[sicarie]

So you are using C++, why are you using getline()?

Have you attempted to read the name in with an intermediary value and then assign it afterwards to the struct value?

[Ganon11]

A single char cannot hold a name like "Joe", it can only hold a single character like 'J'. So you don't want your struct to be a plain char - at the very least, make it a char* or char[20] or something.

But, as sicarie mentioned, you are using C++, so why not use std::string? Then you can use getline like so:

string myName;
getline(cin, myName);

[sicarie]

A single char cannot hold a name like "Joe", it can only hold a single character like 'J'. So you don't want your struct to be a plain char - at the very least, make it a char* or char[20] or something.

But, as sicarie mentioned, you are using C++, so why not use std::string? Then you can use getline like so:

string myName;
getline(cin, myName);

Dang, I looked right over that one.

Thanks, Ganon

[jrhitokiri]

just watch how you use getline 'cuz it will also include your return keypress.

[Ganon11]

Erm...no, it doesn't. The string returned with getline does not include the newline character '\n' - in fact, according to http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/string/getline.html, "If the delimiter is found, it is extracted and discarded, i.e. it is not stored and the next input operation will begin after it."

cin >> operations will leave the newline character in the stream, but still skips it when getting actual input into a variable.