C/C++ Practice Questions on User Input Problem 14

This is my series on C/C++ problems for accepting user input in a robust way. The questions of this series start from C programs, and they slowly build and convert to classes, and which further build into inheritance. This is Problem 14 of this series.

Last Reviewed and Updated on February 7, 2020
Posted by Parveen(Hoven),
Aptitude Trainer and Software Developer

User Input - Problem 14

Use the base class created in Problem 11 to perform floating point input. It should ask the user to enter floating point number, validate the input and display the result.

Solution
// include all the headers
#include "conio.h"
#include "limits.h"
#include "errno.h"
#include
<iostream>

class CConsoleBase
{

public:
    // the maximum limit allowed, use a static const
    // initialize here itself
    static const int iMAXCHARS = 12;

protected:
    char m_cBuff [iMAXCHARS + 3 +
    /*take two more so that overflow can be detected*/2];

    char* m_cReturn;

    // add a temporary storage to hold a copy of input string
    // while the cleanup takes place
    char m_cTemp [iMAXCHARS + 3 +
    /*take two more so that overflow can be detected*/2];

    // the length of string entered by the user.
    // this length is required during cleanup when
    // we flush the unwanted characters. so we make it
    // a private member
    int m_iInputLength;

public:
    // constructor
    CConsoleBase ()
    {

        // requirement for _cgets
        m_cBuff [0] = (iMAXCHARS + 2) + 1;

    }

protected:
    // returns success if the user enters a string <= 10 chars
    bool ReadConsoleString ()
    {

        m_cReturn = NULL;

        int iLoopCtr = 0;

        m_cReturn = _cgets (m_cBuff);

        // save length in a variable. Why are we saving it ?
        m_iInputLength = strlen (m_cReturn);

        // save console input on the temp for cleanup
        strcpy (this->m_cTemp, this->m_cReturn);

        // Robust programming -
        // remove unwanted, unread characters from the stream
        do
        {

            m_cReturn = _cgets (m_cBuff);

        }while (0 != m_cReturn [0]);

        // now write back to m_cReturn, the value of m_cTemp
        strcpy (this->m_cReturn, this->m_cTemp);

        return (m_iInputLength <= iMAXCHARS);

    }

};

class CConsoleDouble : public CConsoleBase
{

    double m_iDoubleValue;

public:
    inline bool TakeDoubleInput ()
    {

        // read console
        bool bRet = ReadConsoleString ();

        if (bRet)
        {

            if ((('+' == m_cReturn [0])
            &&
            11 < m_iInputLength)
            ||
            (10 < m_iInputLength)
            ||
            (0 == m_iInputLength)
            )
            {

                bRet = false;

            }

            // validate
            // now check each digit, do checking so
            // long as iRet != -1
            short iNumDecimalsFound = 0;

            for (int iLoopCtr = 0;

            iLoopCtr < m_iInputLength && bRet;

            iLoopCtr++)
            {

                // if the user enters a sign,
                // we should ignore it
                // in our validation. our purpose
                // is to check for valid numbers
                if (('-' == m_cReturn [0])
                ||
                ('+' == m_cReturn [0]))
                continue;

                if ('.' == m_cReturn [iLoopCtr])
                {

                    if (++iNumDecimalsFound <= 1)
                    {

                        continue;

                    }

                }

                if (!isdigit (m_cReturn [iLoopCtr]))
                {

                    bRet = false;

                    break;

                }

            }

            if (bRet)
            {

                // now verify if the number is
                // within the range.
                // the range as you can see is
                // ULONG_MAX. so
                char* end;

                m_iDoubleValue =
                strtod (m_cReturn, &end);

                // atoi sets errno to ERANGE
                // if out of range occurs
                // the header errno.h is
                // include at the top for this
                if (ERANGE == errno)
                {

                    bRet = false;

                    _set_errno (0);

                }

            }

        }

        return bRet;

    }

    inline double DisplayDoubleInput ()
    {

        return this->m_iDoubleValue;

    }

};

int main ()
{

    CConsoleDouble obj;

    printf ("Enter a floating point number:[10 "
    "significant digits]: ");

    if (obj.TakeDoubleInput ())
    {

        std::cout << "You entered: "
        << obj.DisplayDoubleInput () << std::endl;

    }

    else
    {

        printf ("Invalid Input\n");

    }

    return 0;

}


My C/C++ Videos on Youtube

Here is the complete playlist for video lectures and tutorials for the absolute beginners. The language has been kept simple so that anybody can easily understand them. I have avoided complex jargon in these videos.



Creative Commons License
This Blog Post/Article "C/C++ Practice Questions on User Input Problem 14" by Parveen (Hoven) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Updated on 2020-02-07. Published on: 2015-12-20