C/C++ Practice Questions on User Input Problem 16

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 16 of this series.

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

User Input - Problem 16

Use the class CConsoleULong that you created in Problem 13 to input a number. Output the Fibonacci number at that serial. The user input should be in the range 0 < i < 16.

For example, we know the Fibonacci series is 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 ... if the user enters 4, the output should be the 4-th Fibonacci number, ie, it should be 3. if he enters 5, the output should be 5, and so on. If the user enters a number outside the range, then he should be asked to re-enter. NOTE: The class CConsoleULong has a built-in functionality to validate that the user enters an unsigned long.

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 CConsoleULong : public CConsoleBase
{

    unsigned long m_iIntValue;

public:
    inline bool TakeIntInput ()
    {

        // read console
        bool bRet = ReadConsoleString ();

        if (bRet)
        {

            // validate
            // if the user has not entered a proper string
            // we should say it is an error, we are
            // taking the length = 10 but for 64-bit
            // systems this won't work because
            // INT_MAX could be longer
            if ((('+' == m_cReturn [0])
            &&
            11 < m_iInputLength)
            ||
            (10 < m_iInputLength)
            ||
            (0 == m_iInputLength)
            ||
            ('-' == m_cReturn [0])
            )
            {

                bRet = false;

            }

            // now check each digit, do checking
            // so long as iRet != -1
            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 (!isdigit (m_cReturn [iLoopCtr]))
                {

                    bRet = false;

                }

            }

            if (bRet)
            {

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

                m_iIntValue =
                strtoul (m_cReturn, &end, 10);

                // 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 unsigned long DisplayIntInput ()
    {

        return this->m_iIntValue;

    }

};

unsigned int fibonacci (unsigned int i)
{

    switch (i)
    {

    case 1:
        return 0;

    case 2:
        return 1;

    default:
        return fibonacci (i - 1) + fibonacci (i - 2);

    }

}

int main ()
{

    unsigned int i;

    CConsoleULong obj;

    //NOTE: The class CConsoleULong has a built-in functionality to
    // validate that the user enters an unsigned long.
    do
    {

        std::cout << "Which fibonacci number do you want[1-15]: ";

    }while (!obj.TakeIntInput ()

    ||
    (((i = obj.DisplayIntInput ()) > 15)
    || (0 == i)));

    printf ("The %u-th fibonacci number is = %u\n", i, fibonacci (i));

    return 0;

}


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This Blog Post/Article "C/C++ Practice Questions on User Input Problem 16" 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