Yes you would need to use replace, unless you are using this for a password and you are wanting *'s to show up instead of the actually text. Is that what you mean?

There is a different method. Where you are actually drawing the text just a number of *'s related to the size of the text they have entered. Keeping it synchronized with the actually amount in it of course (factoring in backspace and what not).

EDIT: If you use replace you will actually be overwriting what is in the string. I thought you might be using this to replace cuss words and such with !@#$%^&*'s.

You can go with this method, but when you get to the point of trying to do something with the password they entered in all you are going to see is "*********" The star's are meant for people around you not to see your password. If you overwrite their password with the actual stars then their password then becomes stars. Everyone's password will be almost the same, just varying lengths of stars.

What you want to accomplish is keeping their password in the string, then when it comes time to draw their password to the screen you just draw the number of stars that is equivalent to the number of characters in their password.

Type in: zomgtheholyinterents
They see: ********************

If I'm correct with your method their password will be "********************" instead of "zomgtheholyinterents"

Now you can keep your method as long as you have another string to store their actual password and one string to store whats actually being drawn to the screen. My method reduces the number of strings you need.

Yeah I thought I'd stop you before you ran into that run-time. If you show me a clip of your drawing method I can help you draw it without using another string, but there is nothing wrong in using another string if that's what works for you.

Just remove the replaces and do this...:

if(!censored)
  textout_ex(dbuffer, font, edittext.c_str(), textx, texty, WHITE, -1);
else
{
  string censor;
  for(int i = 0; i < edittext.length(); i++)
    censor += "*";
  textout_ex(dbuffer, font, censor.c_str(), textx, texty, WHITE, -1);
}

Oh I'm sorry, here is the fix:

if(!censored)
  textout_ex(dbuffer, font, edittext.c_str(), textx, texty, WHITE, -1);
else
{
  string censor;
  for(int i = 0; i < edittext.length(); i++)
    censor += "*";
  textout_ex(dbuffer, font, censor.c_str(), textx, texty, WHITE, -1);
  /*    / THIS IS THE FIX /    */
  //censor.erase();
  // EDIT:
  censor.clear();
}

The problem was that censor was not erasing, so it would keep re stacking the edittext onto itself.

I had to go double check myself after I posted on http://www.cppreference.com
erase takes parameters, so you can erase a specific field while clear() will erase the whole string.

Nah, it's just problems that I've ran into before so I know exactly what was going on. I mean.. yes I am a god.

FYI: This forum has a new feature that when the creator of the topic posts you can check a box that says something around the lines of "My question was answered fully" then you give props so people know your question has been answered. But a last post like yours is good too

For future reference, how can I do this (is it the thing that says "Classification"?) Thanks.

Yeah, normally choose "A question seeking a specific answer."

To Tobias:
With my example that's what should be happening but I think he might have made it a member variable, so clearing the string was appropriate. But I do like your method.