New to C++

[coldfire]

Hi, I am new to C++ so forgive me if I am doing some things ridiculously stupid.

I want to create a class with private variables with setters and accesors etc, something like this:

class student {
private:
	string name;

public:
	student() {}  //constructor

	//mutator
	void setFirstName(string x) {
		firstname = x;
	}

        //accessor
	string getFirstName() {
		return firstname;
	}
};

Now in the main method say I want to create a student object and input a string for name:

	student p;
	cout << "Enter your first name: ";
        p.setFirstName( ... ) //What goes here? 

Thanks...

[Chewbob]

string firstname;
getline(cin, firstname);
p.setFirstName(firstname);

Your class's private member is called name, by the way, but both of your accessors return a variable called firstname.

You could also try taking the first name through the constructor.

// constructor
student(const string &n) : name(n)
{}

// or...

student(const string &n)
{
    name = n;
}

// inside main...
student p("Name");

[JCED]

Now in the main method say I want to create a student object and input a string for name:

	student p;
	cout << "Enter your first name: ";
        p.setFirstName( ... ) //What goes here? 

In line three would be the string that you want to change the name to.

So if you wanted to get input from the user:

        string name;
        cout << "Enter your first name: ";
        cin >> name;

        p.setFirstName(name);

OR:

        string name;
        cout << "Enter your first name:";
        p.setFirstName(cin.getline());

This is all covered here: http://cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/basic_io/

[Chewbob]

p.setFirstName(cin.getline());

That wouldn't work. istream::getline returns the istream you provide (in this case, cin). When you are reading a string from the console use the function I used above.

[JCED]

That wouldn't work. istream::getline returns the istream you provide (in this case, cin). When you are reading a string from the console use the function I used above.

Oops. :)

I actually didn't notice you posted this:

string firstname;
getline(cin, firstname);
p.setFirstName(firstname);

I didn't realize I was repeating you. I guess I ought to read better.