>         a ship which is chars at the start and a train which is all
 >         digits......anyway i had this problem it seems with getc, ungetc
 >         and cin and cout ??? Aren't they compatible!!!

No.

Don't mix C stdio with C++ iostreams on the same file handles. They both
buffer the streams independantly.  In fact, I'd recommend avoiding mixing
use of both in the same program if possible - there's probably very little
danger that it would cause any problem, but you're pulling in a lot of
redundant library code. 

 >         Here is a bit of code

 >         while ( c=getc(stdin)!=EOF ) {
 >            if ( isdigit(c) ) {
 >               ungetc(c, stdin);
 >               end=1; // end=1 means end of ships is true!!
 >            }
 >            if ( !end ) {
 >               ungetc(c, stdin);
 >               cin >> tempship; // overloaded cin in ship class
 >               cout << "The details of the ship are "
<< tempship;
 >               // cout overloaded in ship class as well
 >            .....


          while ( (c=cin.get()) !=EOF ) {
             if ( isdigit(c) ) {
                cin.putback(c);
                end=1; // end=1 means end of ships is true!!
             }
             if ( !end ) {
                cin.putback(c);
                cin >> tempship; // overloaded cin in ship class
                cout << "The details of the ship are "
<< tempship;
                // cout overloaded in ship class as well
             .....



david

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