C++ if/else if statement not working correctly

Question

I am trying to code a little game-like adventure program, and I need if else statements in it for it to work correctly. However, whenever I run this if else statement, it does not output what I want.

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
    while(true)
    {
        cout << endl << "What will you do?: ";
        string input;
        cin >> input;
        if (input == "Nothing" || input == "nothing")
            {
                cout << "Why would you do nothing?" << endl;
            }
            else if (input == "Look North" || input == "Look north" || input == "look North" || input == "look north")
            {
                cout << "You look north. There is nothing north." << endl;
            }
    }
}

What I expect it to output would be this:

What will you do?: nothing
Why would you do nothing?

What will you do?: look north
You look north. There is nothing north.

What will you do?:

But instead of getting that when I put those as an input, I get this:

What will you do?: nothing
Why would you do nothing?

What will you do?: look north

What will you do?:
What will you do?:

I would like some help on resolving this issue, as I cannot find an answer to why this would be happening.

Debugging tip: Output the thing you've just input to verify that it is what you think it is. — molbdnilo, Dec 21 '15 at 15:48
Or run through a debugger and examine the input variables. Not much different but I find it a bit cleaner. — Edward Strange, Dec 21 '15 at 15:51
Game design tip: as soon as you will have about 10 locations linked to each others, you will start to hate everything. Think about making locations and links to other locations data-driven — Revolver_Ocelot, Dec 21 '15 at 15:51
Please *transform* your strings into all lowercase or all uppercase before comparing. This reduces the need to compare for "nOrth", "NoRtH", "North", "north" and all other combinations. — Thomas Matthews, Dec 21 '15 at 15:55

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 21 '15 at 15:48

5

cin >> input;

does not read whitespaces. You need to use std::getline.

getline(cin, input);

answered Dec 21 '15 at 15:48

R Sahu

204,454
14
159
270

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 21 '15 at 15:48

0

Because when you input "Look north" using cin>>input; only "Look" is saved into the input variable ..

answered Dec 21 '15 at 15:48

Ankur Jyoti Phukan

785
3
12
20

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

0

The problem is withcin statement as it does not handle white spaces, try what is posted here. Also, you will find helpfull the tolower() function, to normalize your inputs.

edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

Community

1
1

answered Dec 21 '15 at 15:57

ASMateus

71
5

C++ if/else if statement not working correctly

3 Answers3