cin

Specifies the cin global stream.

extern istream cin;

Return Value

An istream object.

Remarks

The object controls extractions from the standard input as a byte stream. Once the object is constructed, the call cin.tie returns &cout.

Example

In this example, cin sets the fail bit on the stream when it encounters non-numeric characters. The program clears the fail bit and strips the invalid character from the stream to proceed.

// iostream_cin.cpp
// compile with: /EHsc
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
   int x;
   cout << "enter choice:";
   cin >> x;
   while (x < 1 || x > 4)
   {
      cout << "Invalid choice, try again:";
      cin >> x;
      // not a numeric character, probably
      // clear the failure and pull off the non-numeric character
      if (cin.fail())
      {
         cin.clear();
         char c;
         cin >> c;
      }
   }
}
2

Requirements

Header: <iostream>

Namespace: std

See Also

Concepts

<iostream> Members

istream

iostream Programming

iostreams Conventions