Question

Hello im having problems reading lines (ignore space characters) in an overloaded Extraction operator

this is my code any assistance would be great

istream& operator>>(istream& is, CreditAccount& Cred){

cout << "Name: ";
is.getline(Cred.name, 256);
}

my error is as follows

error: no matching function for call to ‘std::basic_istream<char, std::char_traits<char> >::getline(std::string&, int)’

Answer 1

we need to know the the type of Cred::name, however from your error it appears to be a std::string. the correct function to use is:

 #include <string> //for std::getline

 istream& operator>>(istream& is, CreditAccount& Cred){
      std::cout << "Name: ";
      std::getline(is, Cred.name);
      return is;
 }

I would also stress, that if you are using std::cout to prompt the user for input you are not using the stream extraction operator properly, it is for basic serialisation and de serialisation of an objects state. Not for user interaction. I personally would just have a “produce_credit_account()” function or the like.

EDIT: to clear std::cin

 std::cin.ignore(std::numeric_limits<std::streamsize>::max());