cin.readLine(); //not being executed. Why?

[Landslyde]

I'm new to both C++ and Qt. I'm reading an online book (http://www.ics.com/files/designpatterns/book/index.html) and am at Example 1.8. My code is exactly as theirs, but I cannot get to cin.readLine(); I can enter my sentence with whitespaces and hit <enter> a 100 times, but I never get to the next line of code. Can someone tell me why? Here is my code:

//#include <QtCore/QCoreApplication>
#include <QTextIStream>
#include <QString>
//#include <QFile>

QTextStream cout(stdout);
QTextStream cin(stdin);


int main()
{
//QCoreApplication a(argc, argv);
QString s1("This "), s2("is a "), s3("string");
s1 += s2; //concatenation
QString s4 = s1 + s3;
cout << s4 << endl;
cout << "The length of that string is " << s4.length() << endl;
cout << "Enter a sentence with whitespaces: " << endl;

// The following three lines of code never execute.

s2 = cin.readLine();
cout << "Here is your sentence: \n" << s2 << endl;
cout << "The length of your sentence is: " << s2.length() << endl;


return 0;
//return a.exec();
}

[ChrisW67]

I seriously doubt their example has commented out lines of code. Please use [code]...[/code] tags around code.

Anyway, that code compiles and runs correctly here. Are you running it on Windows and is a console window popping up to take your input?

[Landslyde]

ChrisW67: The commented-out lines have no affect on the program execution. However, I did go back and put the code in line-for-line. The same result occured. The program accepts my sentence, but it will not move past it to the next line of code: cin.readLine(); My OS is Linux Mint. The program output is in Qt Creator, in its own console below the code. This is the only example that has not ran as expected, and I cannot understand why.

[ChrisW67]

The "Application Output" area is, as the name implies, for output. It is not a terminal and is not connected to the program's stdin.

Go to Projects (Ctrl-5), Run Settings, and turn on Run in Terminal for your program.

[Landslyde]

Thanks for the insight, ChrisW67. I did select the "Run in Terminal" and then ran the program. My term pops up just fine, but that's all I get. A term window. Blank. Nothing. Oh well, everything else is working well. I was wondering though, isn't a terminal also for application input/output?
Also, how do I get my main window to open Maximized? As I recall in VB, there was a way to set this in the Properties window to have the app Maximized when it was launched. Do I have to hard-code this? Just wondering. Truth told, I think I'm fighting with this, making it more difficult than it should be. Has been so long for me though. I started programming back in '83. Had a pretty bad blow to the head though and was in a coma for some time. The very things that use to be second-nature are not there the way they use to be. I'm struggling and am not use to it at all. I do appreciate your help. For real. Thanks.

[ChrisW67]

Under Tools, Options..., Environment, General tab you will find the terminal command it is using to launch you program. Perhaps that is broken. It defaults to "xterm -e" on my system, which of course requires xterm to be present. The KDE equivalent "konsole -e" does not work in my environment.

Can you manually run it from a command prompt?

[Landslyde]

My General Environment terminal is set to: x-terminal-emulator -e

That should work, right? As for running it from the command prompt, I can get to the dir (the desktop build where the .exe is), but I don't know how to run it from there. Sorry, but I have done very little from the terminal. I can do the sudo get-apt (or apt-get).... But that's about it for me.

No big deal on this though. Everything else has driven smoothly, so I'm not sweating this. Sure appreciate your help though. I do have other questions with regards to file i/o, but I'll work through this book a little before I just ask for help. I like to learn. I taught myself how to program using a Timex Sinclair 1000 =) Cassette driven media storage, using your TV for the monitor through a TV/Game Atari switch on the back of the TV. I cut my teeth though on an Apple IIc. Most everything written back then was in BASIC, so I'd put a 5.25" floppy in and break into the programs to look at the code, see how they made it all work. Then I went to Pascal, Delphi, and about 12 other languages. I always wanted to code in C++, then the accident came. Heck, I doubt much memory of it would be left anyway. So here I am, using Qt4 to learn C++. I have a particular program I want to write, so there lies the challenge.

Thanks again for your help.