Question

Using the find method of the string class and I’m not getting the correct results in my query. Here is my code

int main()
{
    string phoneData;
    string name;
    string phoneNumbers[51];
    ifstream inputFile;
    inputFile.open("phonebook");
    int i = 0;
    while (getline(inputFile, phoneData))
    {
        phoneNumbers[i] = phoneData;
        i++;
    }
    cout << "Enter a name or partial name to search for: ";
    getline(cin, name);
    cout << endl << "Here are the results of the search: " << endl;

    for(int i =0;i<50;i++)
    {
        if (name.find(phoneNumbers[i]) == 0)
            cout << phoneNumbers[i] << endl;
    }
    inputFile.close();
    return 0;
}

Answer 1

you aren’t using it correctly. string::find() returns the beginning position when it finds a match, or string::npos if it doesn’t find a match. you also have the search backwards. you’re looking for ‘name’ inside ‘phoneNumbers[i], not the other way around. your check inside the loop should look like this:

if (phoneNumbers[i].find(name) != string::npos)
    cout << phoneNumbers[i] << endl;