Getline ignoring first character of input

Question

I'm just starting with arrays in C++ and I'm having a problem getting the first character of an array.

This is my code,

1- I enter a name, such as "Jim"

char name[30];
cin.ignore();
cin.getline(name, 30);

2- Right away I try to cout the array

    cout<<"NAME:"<<name; // THIS PRINTS 'im'

I was sure it would print 'J'. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Here is signature of cin.ignore:

istream& ignore (streamsize n = 1, int delim = EOF);

So if you call ignore function without any parameters, it will ignore '1' char by default from input. In this case it ignored 'J'. Remove ignore call and you will get 'Jim'.

Answer 2

Just remove cin.ignore();

This ignores the first character, thus you miss the 'J'.