Strange behaviour of "cin"

["Arun Saini , Gurgaon" <arun at ggn dot hcltech dot com>]

I have a program where "cin" fails. I tried tracing through the call using
gdb.
I provide the trace below.

575                             cin >> selection;
(gdb) s
_ZNSirsERi (this=0x80545840, __n=@0x8047c98) at istream.tcc:185
185           sentry __cerb(*this, false);
(gdb) s
sentry (this=0x8047c4f, __in=@0x80545840, __noskipws=false) at
istream.tcc:41
41            if (__in.good())
(gdb) n
43                if (__in.tie())
(gdb)
44                  __in.tie()->flush();
(gdb)
45                if (!__noskipws && (__in.flags() & ios_base::skipws))
(gdb)
47                    const __int_type __eof = traits_type::eof();
(gdb)
48                    const __ctype_type* __ctype =
__in._M_get_fctype_ios();
(gdb)
49                    __streambuf_type* __sb = __in.rdbuf();
(gdb)
50                    __int_type __c = __sb->sgetc();
(gdb)
52                    while (__c != __eof && __ctype->is(ctype_base::space,
__c))
(gdb)
57                    if (__c == __eof)
(gdb)
63            if (__in.good())
(gdb)
64              _M_ok = true;
(gdb)
0x8053bfd       68                __in.setstate(ios_base::failbit);

The last statement is surprising since we see from the previous statements
that the goodbit was set.

Any ideas why the failbit is getting set.

I am using cc 3.0.3 and the libstdc++ that comes along with it on SCO 5.0.5.

A snipet from the file istream.tcc, whose trace is given above, is provided
below.

    37    template<typename _CharT, typename _Traits>
    38      basic_istream<_CharT, _Traits>::sentry::
    39      sentry(basic_istream<_CharT, _Traits>& __in, bool __noskipws)
    40      {
 >> 41        if (__in.good())
    42          {
 >> 43            if (__in.tie())
 >> 44              __in.tie()->flush();
 >> 45            if (!__noskipws && (__in.flags() & ios_base::skipws))
    46              {
 >> 47                const __int_type __eof = traits_type::eof();
 >> 48                const __ctype_type* __ctype =
__in._M_get_fctype_ios();
 >> 49                __streambuf_type* __sb = __in.rdbuf();
 >> 50                __int_type __c = __sb->sgetc();
    51
 >> 52                while (__c != __eof && __ctype->is(ctype_base::space,
__c))
    53                  __c = __sb->snextc();
    54
    55  #ifdef _GLIBCPP_RESOLVE_LIB_DEFECTS
    56  //195.  Should basic_istream::sentry's constructor ever set eofbit?
 >> 57                if (__c == __eof)
    58                  __in.setstate(ios_base::eofbit);
    59  #endif
    60              }
    61          }
    62
 >> 63        if (__in.good())
 >> 64          _M_ok = true;
    65        else
    66          {
    67            _M_ok = false;
 ?? 68            __in.setstate(ios_base::failbit);
    69          }
    70      }
 
Regards

Arun Saini