Question

I want the console window that pops up whenever you run a C++ program to stay… but in my code here that’s not happening. It just quickly vanishes. What’s wrong? Note: I am new to C++.

For some reason it works properly when I use only the main() function to hold everything and not have the second one, but for purposes of my assignment I can’t stuff everything in to main().

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
#include <sstream>
#include <cstdio>
using namespace std;

ifstream file("maze.txt");
vector<char> vec(istreambuf_iterator<char>(file), (istreambuf_iterator<char>())); // Imports characters from file
vector<char> path;                      // Declares path as the vector storing the characters from the file
int x = 18;                             // Declaring x as 18 so I can use it with recursion below
char entrance = vec.at(16);             // 'S', the entrance to the maze
char firstsquare = vec.at(17);          // For the first walkable square next to the entrance
vector<char> visited;                   // Squares that we've walked over already

int main()
{
    if (file) {
        path.push_back(entrance);               // Store 'S', the entrance character, into vector 'path'
        path.push_back(firstsquare);            // Store the character of the square to the right of the entrance
                                                // into vector 'path'.
        while (isalpha(vec.at(x)))
        {
            path.push_back(vec.at(x));
            x++;
        }
    }
}

int printtoscreen()
{
    cout << "Path is: ";                    // Printing to screen the first part of our statement

        // This loop to print to the screen all the contents of the vector 'path'.
        for(vector<char>::const_iterator i = path.begin(); i != path.end(); ++i)  // 
        {
        std::cout << *i << ' ';
        }

        cout << endl;
        cin.get();                          // Keeps the black box that pops up, open, so we can see results.
        return 0;
}

Answer 1

You are not calling your printoscreen function. Try adding printtoscreen(); before the end of your main() function.

EDIT:

Also consider changing int printoscreen(){ to void printoscreen(){ and correspondigly return 0; to just return; in this function, as you are not returning anything meaningful, and are ignorig result value in main. So the enitre code would be:

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
#include <sstream>
#include <cstdio>
using namespace std;

ifstream file("maze.txt");
vector<char> vec(istreambuf_iterator<char>(file), (istreambuf_iterator<char>())); // Imports characters from file
vector<char> path;                      // Declares path as the vector storing the characters from the file
int x = 18;                             // Declaring x as 18 so I can use it with recursion below
char entrance = vec.at(16);             // 'S', the entrance to the maze
char firstsquare = vec.at(17);          // For the first walkable square next to the entrance
vector<char> visited;                   // Squares that we've walked over already

void printtoscreen();

int main()
{
    if (file) {
        path.push_back(entrance);               // Store 'S', the entrance character, into vector 'path'
        path.push_back(firstsquare);            // Store the character of the square to the right of the entrance
                                                // into vector 'path'.
        while (isalpha(vec.at(x)))
        {
            path.push_back(vec.at(x));
            x++;
        }
    }
    printtoscreen();
}

void printtoscreen()
{
    cout << "Path is: ";                    // Printing to screen the first part of our statement

        // This loop to print to the screen all the contents of the vector 'path'.
        for(vector<char>::const_iterator i = path.begin(); i != path.end(); ++i)  // 
        {
        std::cout << *i << ' ';
        }

        cout << endl;
        cin.get();                          // Keeps the black box that pops up, open, so we can see results.
        return;
}