Why cin doesn't recognize enter key, as cin.get does?

Question

For example, if write those statements in code:

char a[10];
char b[10];
cin>>a;
cin>>b;

cin>>b; doesn't see Enter key that was pressed after typing, for example, Hello

but when instead cin>>b; write cin.get(b, 10); then cin.get(b, 10); reads Enter key from previous statement.

What do you mean by "doesn't see Enter key that was pressed after typing?" Do you mean that it did not move the cursor to a new line in the console? — Kyle G., Aug 19 '13 at 15:30
This shouldn't even compile. Did you mean for those arrays to be `char`? — Sebastian Redl, Aug 19 '13 at 15:30
Also, don't use character arrays. C++ has a proper string type: `std::string`. — milleniumbug, Aug 19 '13 at 15:45
@milleniumbug Ok, I'm just learning C++ by reading C++ Primer Plus, and I haven't started reading about it yet. — Sunrise, Aug 19 '13 at 15:54

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 19 '13 at 15:33

Working under the assumption that a and b are arrays of char here, because otherwise your question does not make sense.

get is an "unformatted" input function, meant to read the input as it comes into the stream. That's why it reads the newline.

>> is a "formatted" input function, meant to read a specific type of data in a natural way. In particular, >> with a char array reads a single word, i.e. a sequence of characters not containing whitespace. This is why it stops reading when it encounters the newline, which is whitespace.

Why cin doesn't recognize enter key, as cin.get does?

1 Answers1