Question

Draw a simplified star-stripe flag using star (*) and equal (=) characters, such as:

****======
****======
****======
****======
==========
========== 
  

The user can choose how the flag should look like. But there are following restrictions:

• The width of the flag is between 5 and 70 (inclusive);
• The height of the flag is between 5 and the width of the flag (inclusive);
• The star area is placed at the upper left corner of the flag;
• The star area is a square and its width must be smaller than the height of the flag;
• There must be at least one star.
• The program should use do-while, and nested-loop statements

Your task:

Design and implement a relatively simple and easy C++ program that performs the following steps:

• keep asking user to enter the width of a flag until a valid width is entered;
• keep asking user to enter the height of a flag until a valid height is entered;
• keep asking user to enter the width of the star area until a valid number is entered;
• draw (display) the flag based on the user input.

One of the purpose of this assignment is to practice the modular design. Your program should have at least one function that can be used by the first 3 steps of above tasks.

Answer 1

The C++ program for the above problem is:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int input(int a, int b) {
        int l;
        while(1) { // loop continues unless valid input is obtained or given by the user
                cin>>l;
                if(l >= a && l <= b)
                        return l;
                else
                        cout <<"Enter value between "<<a<<" and "<<b<<" (inclusive): ";
        }
}

int main() {
        cout <<"Enter width of the flag: ";
        int width_flag = input(5,70); // width inclusive of length 5 and 70
        printf("Enter height of the flag: ");
        int height_flag = input(5,width_flag); // height inclusive of length 5 and width
        printf("Enter width of the flag: ");
        int width_star = input(1,height_flag - 1); // width inclusive of length 1 and less than height
        int i = 0, j = 0;
        do { // outer loop takes care of the height
                j = 0;
                if(i < width_star) {
                        do { // inner loop takes care of the width
                                if(j < width_star)
                                        cout <<"*";
                                else
                                        cout <<"=";
                                j++;
                        }
                        while(j < width_flag);
                }
                else {
                        do { // inner loop takes care of width
                                cout <<"=";
                                j++;
                        }
                        while(j < width_flag);
                }
                i++;
                cout << endl;
        }
        while(i < height_flag);
        return 0;
}

The sample of the program is:

The output sample of the program is:

Comment down if you have any queries regarding the above code. I will help you out as soon as possible.