Why doesn't my else if statement in my C++ code work

Question

I am relatively new to code and I experimenting with if, else if, and else statements. I wrote the code below but every time I type in one of the possible inputs, the else statement occurs. For example, for the input I wrote how about you? but the output was "Sorry, either you made a typo or I currently don't have a response to that" instead of "i'm doing decent."

string c;
std::cin >> c;
if (c == "how about you?")
{
   cout << "i'm doing decent \nthanks for asking";
}
else if (c == "How about you?")
{
   cout << "i'm doing decent \nthanks for asking";
}
else if (c == "how about you")
{
   cout << "i'm doing decent \nthanks for asking";
}
else if (c == "how bout you")
{
   cout << "i'm doing decent \nthanks for asking";
}
else
{
   cout << "Sorry, either you made a typo or I currently don't have a response to that \nthank you for your time";
}

You may be interested in [How to convert std::string to lower case?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/313970/how-to-convert-stdstring-to-lower-case). — François Andrieux, Dec 14 '18 at 00:24
With user input like this it is often worth printing the input out as part of the message to see what the computer things is being tested. `cout << "Got >" << c << "<\n";` — Martin York, Dec 14 '18 at 00:26
“You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.” I like your experiment. — Pete Becker, Dec 14 '18 at 01:00

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 14 '18 at 00:21

3

std::cin will stop reading once it encounters a whitespace. So even though you entered "how about you?", only "how" is stored in string c. This is the reason why else part is getting executed.

answered Dec 14 '18 at 00:21

kadina

5,042
4
42
83

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 14 '18 at 00:22

3

Use getline(cin, c) instead reference

answered Dec 14 '18 at 00:22

donpsabance

358
3
9

Why doesn't my else if statement in my C++ code work

2 Answers2