Question

I just started teaching myself C++ on the Mac, and I have run into some issues.

I have written some code that allows the user to enter a number and when they hit enter, the number will be returned to the user.

Xcode will absolutely not have it though. Every time I try to run my code, it says that there is an issue with the cin>> thisisanumber; code.

The error comes up and says

Invalid operands to binary expression. Error is on line 10.

What am I doing wrong?

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
   int thisisanumber();

   cout << "Please enter a number: ";
   cin  >> thisisanumber;
   cin.ignore();
   cout << "You entered"<< thisisanumber <<"\n";
   cin.get();
}

Answer 1

You’ve fallen victim to the most vexing parse, which means thisisanumber is being treated as a function. Take out the parentheses and you should be fine:

int thisisanumber;

Also consider making it a bit more readable, such as thisIsANumber. If you ever need to know it, thisIsANumber uses the camel-case naming convention.