Printing input string words in reverse order

Question

Using if and while/do-while, my job is to print following user's inputs (string value) in reverse order.

For example:

input string value : "You are American" output in reverse order : "American are You"

Is there any way to do this?

I have tried

string a;
cout << "enter a string: ";
getline(cin, a);
a = string ( a.rbegin(), a.rend() );
cout << a << endl;
return 0;

...but this would reverse the order of the words and spelling while spelling is not what I'm going for.

I also should be adding in if and while statements but do not have a clue how.

Answer 1

This uses exactly one each of if and while.

#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>


void backwards(std::istream& in, std::ostream& out)
{
   std::string word;
   if (in >> word)   // Read the frontmost word
   {
      backwards(in, out);  // Output the rest of the input backwards...
      out << word << " ";  // ... and output the frontmost word at the back
   }
}

int main()
{
   std::string line;
   while (getline(std::cin, line))
   {
      std::istringstream input(line);
      backwards(input, std::cout);
      std::cout << std::endl;
   }
}

Answer 2

The algorithm is:

1. Reverse the whole string
2. Reverse the individual words

#include<iostream>
#include<algorithm>
using namespace std;

string reverseWords(string a)
{ 
    reverse(a.begin(), a.end());
    int s = 0;
    int i = 0;
    while(i < a.length())
    {
        if(a[i] == ' ')
        {
             reverse(a.begin() + s, a.begin() + i);
             s = i + 1;
        }
        i++;
    }
    if(a[a.length() - 1] != ' ')  
    {
        reverse(a.begin() + s, a.end());           
    }
    return a; 
}

Answer 3

You might try this solution in getting a vector of string's using the ' ' (single space) character as a delimiter.

The next step would be to iterate over this vector backwards to generate the reverse string.

Here's what it might look like (split is the string splitting function from that post):

Edit 2: If you don't like vectors for whatever reason, you can use arrays (note that pointers can act as arrays). This example allocates a fixed size array on the heap, you may want to change this to say, double the size when the current word amount has reached a certain value.

Solution using an array instead of a vector:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int getWords(string input, string ** output)
{
    *output = new string[256];  // Assumes there will be a max of 256 words (can make this more dynamic if you want)
    string currentWord;
    int currentWordIndex = 0;
    for(int i = 0; i <= input.length(); i++)
    {
        if(i == input.length() || input[i] == ' ')  // We've found a space, so we've reached a new word
        {
            if(currentWord.length() > 0)
            {
                (*output)[currentWordIndex] = currentWord;
                currentWordIndex++;
            }
            currentWord.clear();
        }
        else
        {
            currentWord.push_back(input[i]);    // Add this character to the current word
        }
    }
    return currentWordIndex;    // returns the number of words
}

int main ()
{
    std::string original, reverse;
    std::getline(std::cin, original);  // Get the input string
    string * arrWords;
    int size = getWords(original, &arrWords);  // pass in the address of the arrWords array
    int index = size - 1;
    while(index >= 0)
    {
       reverse.append(arrWords[index]);
       reverse.append(" ");
       index--;
    }
    std::cout << reverse << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

Edit: Added includes, main function, while loop format

#include <vector>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>


// From the post
std::vector<std::string> &split(const std::string &s, char delim, std::vector<std::string> &elems)
{
   std::stringstream ss(s);
   std::string item;
   while(std::getline(ss, item, delim)) {
       elems.push_back(item);
   }
   return elems;
}


std::vector<std::string> split(const std::string &s, char delim) {
    std::vector<std::string> elems;
    return split(s, delim, elems);
}

int main ()
{
    std::string original, reverse;
    std::cout << "Input a string: " << std::endl;
    std::getline(std::cin, original);  // Get the input string

    std::vector<std::string> words = split(original, ' ');

    std::vector<std::string>::reverse_iterator rit = words.rbegin();

    while(rit != words.rend())
    {
       reverse.append(*rit);
       reverse.append(" "); // add a space
       rit++;
    }
    std::cout << reverse << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

Answer 4

This code here uses string libraries to detect the blanks in the input stream and rewrite the output sentence accordingly

The algorithm is 1. Get the input stream using getline function to capture the spacecs. Initialize pos1 to zero. 2. Look for the first space in the input stream 3. If no space is found, the input stream is the output 4. Else, get the position of the first blank after pos1, i.e. pos2. 5. Save the sub-string bewteen pos1 and pos2 at the beginning of the output sentence; newSentence. 6. Pos1 is now at the first char after the blank. 7. Repeat 4, 5 and 6 untill no spaces left. 8. Add the last sub-string to at the beginning of the newSentence. –

#include <iostream> 
#include <string> 

  using namespace std; 

int main ()
{ 
    string sentence; 
    string newSentence;
    string::size_type pos1; 
    string::size_type pos2; 

    string::size_type len; 

    cout << "This sentence rewrites a sentence backward word by word\n"
            "Hello world => world Hello"<<endl;

    getline(cin, sentence); 
    pos1 = 0; 
    len = sentence.length();
    pos2 = sentence.find(' ',pos1); 
    while (pos2 != string::npos)
        {
            newSentence = sentence.substr(pos1, pos2-pos1+1) + newSentence; 
            pos1 = pos2 + 1;
            pos2 = sentence.find(' ',pos1);       
        }
    newSentence = sentence.substr(pos1, len-pos1+1) + " "  + newSentence;
    cout << endl << newSentence  <<endl; 

    return 0;

}

Answer 5

This example unpacks the input string one word at a time, and builds an output string by concatenating in reverse order. `

#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
  string inp_str("I am British");
  string out_str("");
  string word_str;
  istringstream iss( inp_str );


  while (iss >> word_str) {
    out_str = word_str + " " + out_str;
  } // while (my_iss >> my_word) 

  cout << out_str << endl;

  return 0;
} // main

`

Answer 6

Here is a C-based approach that will compile with a C++ compiler, which uses the stack to minimize creation of char * strings. With minimal work, this can be adapted to use C++ classes, as well as trivially replacing the various for loops with a do-while or while block.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

#define MAX_LINE_LENGTH 1000
#define MAX_WORD_LENGTH 80

void rev(char *str) 
{
    size_t str_length = strlen(str);
    int str_idx;
    char word_buffer[MAX_WORD_LENGTH] = {0};
    int word_buffer_idx = 0;

    for (str_idx = str_length - 1; str_idx >= 0; str_idx--)
        word_buffer[word_buffer_idx++] = str[str_idx];

    memcpy(str, word_buffer, word_buffer_idx);
    str[word_buffer_idx] = '\0';
}

int main(int argc, char **argv) 
{
    char *line = NULL;
    size_t line_length;
    int line_idx;
    char word_buffer[MAX_WORD_LENGTH] = {0};
    int word_buffer_idx;

    /* set up line buffer - we cast the result of malloc() because we're using C++ */

    line = (char *) malloc (MAX_LINE_LENGTH + 1);
    if (!line) {
        fprintf(stderr, "ERROR: Could not allocate space for line buffer!\n");
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    /* read in a line of characters from standard input */

    getline(&line, &line_length, stdin);

    /* replace newline with NUL character to correctly terminate 'line' */

    for (line_idx = 0; line_idx < (int) line_length; line_idx++) {
        if (line[line_idx] == '\n') {
            line[line_idx] = '\0';
            line_length = line_idx; 
            break;
        }
    }

    /* put the reverse of a word into a buffer, else print the reverse of the word buffer if we encounter a space */

    for (line_idx = line_length - 1, word_buffer_idx = 0; line_idx >= -1; line_idx--) {
        if (line_idx == -1) 
            word_buffer[word_buffer_idx] = '\0', rev(word_buffer), fprintf(stdout, "%s\n", word_buffer);
        else if (line[line_idx] == ' ')
            word_buffer[word_buffer_idx] = '\0', rev(word_buffer), fprintf(stdout, "%s ", word_buffer), word_buffer_idx = 0;
        else
            word_buffer[word_buffer_idx++] = line[line_idx];
    }

    /* cleanup memory, to avoid leaks */

    free(line);

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

To compile with a C++ compiler, and then use:

$ g++ -Wall test.c -o test
$ ./test
foo bar baz
baz bar foo