Question

I compiled on Ubuntu a program that was developed for (and works on) Windows. On Ubuntu, I see this code:

string s = values_[9];
cout << s << endl;
cout << s << "x\n";

producing this output:

high
xigh

The expected output for the second line is “highx”. I know that the value of values_[9] is originally read from a file (written on Windows). Printing other strings seems to work normally.

What’s going on here?

Answer 1

Run the command with its output piped through cat -A. Probably either the value of s, or the output produced by endl is giving you a '\r' character, which typically sends the cursor back to the beginning of the line.

EDIT: On further thought, the stray '\r' is almost certainly in s, not in the output produced by endl. I had thought there might be some funny locale stuff going on, but having s equal to "high\r" explains the symptoms.

EDIT2: If your system doesn’t have cat -A (it’s a GNU extension), try cat -v or, if you’re desperate, od -c.