The extraction operator (>>) reads input only until the first whitespace character is encountered. To read an entire line of text, including spaces, the std::getline() function is used.

This example demonstrates how to read a complete line of input from the standard input stream.

Source Code #

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

int main()
{
    std::string name;

    std::cout << "Enter your full name: ";
    std::getline(std::cin, name);

    std::cout << "Name: " << name << '\n';

    return 0;
}

Output #

Enter your full name: John Smith
Name: John Smith

Explanation #

• #include <string> includes the Standard Library header that defines the std::string class.
• std::string name; declares a string object capable of storing a sequence of characters.
• std::getline(std::cin, name); reads characters from the standard input stream until a newline character is encountered.
• Unlike the extraction operator (>>), std::getline() preserves spaces entered by the user.
• The newline character used to terminate the input is extracted from the input stream but is not stored in the string.
• std::cout << "Name: " << name << '\n'; displays the complete line stored in the string object.
• return 0; terminates the program successfully.