Question

I call a function from a function in C++ that has the line getline(cin,name) where name is a string. the first time through the loop, the program does not wait for input. It will on all other passes through the loop. Any ideas on why?

void getName (string& name)
{ 
     int nameLen; 
      do{
          cout << "Enter the last Name of the resident." << endl << endl
              << "There should not be any spaces and no more than 15"
              << " characters in the name."  << endl;



         getline(cin,name);
            cout << endl;
            nameLen = name.length();// set len to number of characters input

         cout << "last" << name << endl;
         }
      while (nameLen < LastNameLength);   
      return;
}

Answer 1

Make sure there isn’t left overs since the last time you read something from cin, like:
In an earlier point in your program:

int number;
cin >> number;

The input you give:

5

Later in the program:

getline(cin,name);

and getline will seem to not be called, but rather it collected the newline from the last time you took input because when you use cin >> it leaves new lines.