Examples
cout << "Enter size: ";
cin >> size;
cout << "Enter x and y coordinates: ";
cin >> x >> y;
Explanation
cin
is the counterpart to cout
; it is an input stream (an istream
object) representing console input - by default, the keyboard
>>
is the stream extractor operator
- The
istream
object appears on the left
- The variable to hold the extracted data appears on the right
- Tip: think of the >> as an arrow showing direction of data flow
- The stream extraction operator works with all of the primitive types and with strings
- Extractions can be chained together to extract items of data input multiple variables; the items of data must be separated by whitespace (spaces, tabs, newline)