Read multiline string input in C++

This post will discuss how to read multi-line string input in C++.

The std::getline function extracts characters from the input stream and stores them into a specified stream until a delimiter is encountered. The idea is to read each line at a time with std::getline and store them in a container. If no delimiter is specified, use an empty line as a delimiter character.

#include <iostream>

#include <vector>

#include <string>

int main()

{

std::string line;

std::vector<std::string> v;

while (std::getline(std::cin, line))

{

if (line.empty()) {

break;

}

v.push_back(line);

}

for (std::string &s: v){

std::cout << s << std::endl;

}

return 0;

}

Download Run Code

The above solution repeatedly read lines with std::getline using a loop, and store each line as an element in a vector of strings. We can read the entire text in a single string by using the overload version of the std::getline function that accepts a delimiter character to signal the end of the input:

For example, the following solution reads the multiline input from the console into the string s using std::getline until the $ character is encountered, which gets interpreted as EOF.

#include <iostream>

#include <string>

int main()

{

std::string s;

std::getline(std::cin, s, '$');

std::cout << s << std::endl;

return 0;

}

Download Run Code

We can even use the actual EOF (End-of-File) indicator as a delimiter. Now, the input is terminated when the end-of-File indicator associated with the input stream is set.

#include <iostream>

#include <string>

int main()

{

std::string s;

std::getline(std::cin, s, static_cast<char>(EOF));

std::cout << s << std::endl;

return 0;

}

Download Run Code

That’s all about reading multi-line string input in C++.

Read multiline string input in C++

Share this: