Question

Hey, I’m trying to write a program that will accept new tasks from people, add it to a stack, be able to display the task, be able to save that stack to a text file, and then read the text file. The issue comes when I am trying to accept input from the user, whenever you enter a string with a space in it, the menu to choose what to do just loops. I need a way to fix this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

// basic file io operations
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <stack>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int main () {
    //Declare the stack
    stack<string> list;

    //Begin the loop for the menu
    string inputLine;
    cout << "Welcome to the to-do list!" << endl;

    //Trying to read the file
    ifstream myfile ("to-do.txt");
    if(myfile.is_open()){

        //read every line of the to-do list and add it to the stack
        while(myfile.good()){
            getline(myfile,inputLine);
            list.push(inputLine);
        }
        myfile.close();
        cout << "File read successfully!" << endl;
    } else {
        cout << "There was no file to load... creating a blank stack." << endl;
    }

    int option;

    //while we dont want to quit
    while(true){
        //display the options for the program
        cout << endl << "What would you like to do?" << endl;
        cout << "1. View the current tasks on the stack." << endl;
        cout << "2. Remove the top task in the stack." << endl;
        cout << "3. Add a new task to the stack." << endl;
        cout << "4. Save the current task to a file." << endl;
        cout << "5. Exit." << endl << endl;

        //get the input from the user
        cin >> option;

        //use the option to do the necessary task
        if(option < 6 && option > 0){
            if(option == 1){
                //create a buffer list to display all
                stack<string> buff = list;
                cout << endl;
                //print out the stack
                while(!buff.empty()){
                    cout << buff.top() << endl;
                    buff.pop();
                }
            }else if (option == 2){
                list.pop();
            }else if (option == 3){
                //make a string to hold the input
                string task;
                cout << endl << "Enter the task that you would like to add:" << endl;
                getline(cin, task); // THIS IS WHERE THE ISSUE COMES IN
                cin.ignore();

                //add the string
                list.push(task);
                cout << endl;
            }else if (option == 4){
                //write the stack to the file
                stack<string> buff = list;
                ofstream myfile ("to-do.txt");
                if (myfile.is_open()){
                    while(!buff.empty()){
                        myfile << buff.top();
                        buff.pop();
                        if(!buff.empty()){
                            myfile << endl;
                        }
                    }
                }
                myfile.close();
            }else{
                cout << "Thank you! And Goodbye!" << endl;
                break;
            }
        } else {
            cout << "Enter a proper number!" << endl;
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

You have to add cin.ignore() right after options is chosen:

//get the input from the user
cin >> option;
cin.ignore();

And cin.ignore() is not necessary after your getline:

    getline(cin, task); // THIS IS WHERE THE ISSUE COMES IN
        //cin.ignore();

The problem is in options – if you didn’t call cin.ignore() after it, options will contain end of line and loop will continue…

I hope this helps.