Very basic program. Need criticism.

First of all, please use code tags when posting code. They look like this
[ CODE] [ /CODE] (without the space after [)

And also, this belongs in the non-visual c++ forum. This is for questions related to VC++ IDE specific question. Questions about the C++ language itself shoudl go in the non-visual. Almost everyone new makes this mistake, someone should really clarify this in the forum descriptions

I left comments in following code:

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <ctime>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
cout << "THE NUMBER GUESSING GAME!" << endl;
cout << "Guess a number 1-100" << endl;
cout << "You only have 5 guesses. Good Luck!" << endl;
cout << "Guess: ";


srand(time(0));
int ans = (rand() % 100) + 1;
int guess;
int done;

done = 0; // you could have just done "int done=0;"
cin >> guess; //what happens if you dont write number?

while(guess != ans && ++done < 5){
//This only allows 4 guesses, ++done will return the value of done
// after the increment is evaluated. done++ will return the value of
// done before it is incremented
if (guess < 0 || guess > 100){ //you didnt say you were allowing 0
cout << "The number " << guess << " is not between 1-100." << endl;
}
else if (guess > ans){
cout << "The number " << guess << " is too high. You lose." << endl;
}
else if (guess < ans){
cout << "The number " << guess << " is too low. You lose." << endl;
}
cout << "Guess Again: ";
cin >> guess;
}
if (done == 5){
cout << "You ran out of guesses. The number was " << ans << "." << endl;
}
if (guess == ans){
cout << "YOU WIN" << endl;
}

system("PAUSE");

return 0;

}

Pretty good overall :). Had fun reading this, since this was exactly what my first C++ program was.

Sorry about the wrong forum. Ill post in the other next time. The only part of your comments I didn't agrre with was to put the ++ after done instead of before.So get rid of it and just increment "done" in the while loop.

int done = 0;
while (guess != ans && done < 5)
{
//...
++done;
}

Now there is no doubt the maximum times the while() loop will run.
Also, for the pat with "cin >> guess" you asked me what happens if a number isnt input. How can I prevent this? Read in as a string, convert the string to a number using strtol(), or you can check to see if any character in the string is not a digit and convert using atoi() if the string is a valid number.

Regards,

Paul McKenzie

So get rid of it and just increment "done" in the while loop.

int done = 0;
while (guess != ans && done < 5)
{
//...
++done;
}
Alternatively, use a for-loop:
for (int done=0; guess!=ans && done<5; ++done)
{
//...
}

Hi all.

Apart from tecnhical details, that are well explained into post above, I would like to suggest this simple rule: write remarks into your code always.
There are many good reasons to do this: it grows code readeability, will be easier to alter the program later and so on.
You should write remarks when you're writing the code, no after: in this way you fix the logical steps you have to follow in order to develop your program; moreover, when you aren't able to write what you're going to do using a human language, probably you won't able to do it using a programming language.