Question

Given the fragment below, What will happen if the user types 2 3 instead of entering one number at a time?

int x, y;
cout << "Give first number: ";
cin >> x;
cout << "Give second number: ";
cin >> y;
cout << x << " " << y;
a. Before being able to enter the prompt for Give second number: 2 3 will be displayed
b. The program will display an error message.
c. The program will store '2' in variable x and '3' in variable y.
d. The program will wait for the user to enter the second number correctly.

Answer 1

When the user enters '2 3' at once, '2' is stored in variable x, and '3' in variable y without requiring further input for the second number, due to the console input behavior of C++.

Step-by-step explanation:

If the user types 2 3 instead of entering one number at a time in the given fragment of code, when prompted for the first number, the following will occur:

The first number entered, '2', will be stored in the variable x.

Immediately after, without prompting the user for the second number, the second number entered, '3', will be stored in the variable y.

The program will then proceed as normal, not waiting for additional user input, and will output the values of x and y.

This behavior is due to the fact that the cin operator in C++ reads from the input buffer until it encounters whitespace, then assigns the input to the variable associated with that input stream operation.