My input is getting skipped no matter what I use

Question

I am trying to have a user enter three inputs: user name, id, and an alternate id. If the user enters a return for user name, the program should end. If the user enters a user name and enters a return for the next two ids, the input should display as invalid. I have tried using cin, fgets, and get(I know get is usually bad programming). When I used cin, I tried using cin.clear() and cin.ignore() to skip a newline entry. The first input always works, but the second input call keeps getting skipped.

Code snippet:

int main(){
    string name, altID, tempUWFID;
    char input;
    cout << "Name> ";   
//  if (cin.get() == '\n') - This was one way that I tried.
    if ((input = getchar()) == '\n')
        break;
    else 
        cin >> name;
    cout << "UWF ID> ";
    if ((input = getchar()) != '\n')
        cin >> tempUWFID;
    cout << "Alternate ID> ";
    if ((input = getchar()) != '\n')
        cin >>altID;
cout << "\nThank you for abusing my program, have a nice day!\n";

Output:

Welcome to Voter's Registration
Name> johnny
UWF ID> Alternate ID>
ad
Invalid UWF ID

Name>

Thank you for abusing my program, have a nice day!

Expected Output:

Welcome to Voter's Registration
Name> johnny
UWF ID> somenumber 
Alternate ID> someothernumber
Invalid UWF ID

Name>

Thank you for abusing my program, have a nice day!

Answer 1

Here's a quick little program I built, does this solve your problem?

cin itself can read newline characters, and cin >> ... treats newline characters as whitespace and ignores them. cin.getline(...) and std::getline(cin, ...) will read and discard newline characters from cin and then stop reading.

So see if this works for you.

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

int main()
{
  string name = "";
  string uwfId = "";
  string altId = "";

  cout << "\nName> ";   
  getline(cin, name);
  if(name == "" )
    return 0;

  cout << "\nUWF ID> ";
  getline(cin, name);

  cout << "\nAlternate ID> ";
  getline(cin, name);

  if(uwfId == "" || altId == "")
  {
    cout << "\nInvalid!";
    return 1;
  }

  return 0;
}