Counting the no. of words in a csv file in c++ - c++

Question

I am trying to count the no. of dates stores in the first line of a CSV file (Separated by commas):-
State,Region,Lat,Long,1/22/20,1/23/20,1/24/20,1/25/20,1/26/20
I have to count the no. of dates after Long(i.e. output = 5).
I have written the code to read the CSV file, which I have shown below, but, how shall I count the no. of dates after long. Would highly appreciate your help. Please feel free to ask for any other piece of information. Thanks.
char** readCSV(const char* csvFileName, int& csvLineCount)
{
ifstream fin(csvFileName);
if (!fin)
{
return nullptr;
}
csvLineCount = 0;
char line[1024];
while(fin.getline(line, 1024))
{
csvLineCount++;
};
char **lines = new char*[csvLineCount];
fin.clear();
fin.seekg(0, ios::beg);
for (int i=0; i<csvLineCount; i++)
{
fin.getline(line, 1024);
lines[i] = new char[strlen(line)+1];
strcpy(lines[i], line);
};
fin.close();
return lines;
}

Answer 1

This looks like you are reading a record that contains one or more subrecords.
I recommend using a Date class as well as a Record class.
class Date
{
public:
unsigned int month_num;
unsigned int day_num;
unsigned int year_num;
friend std::istream& operator>>(std::istream& input, Date& d);
};
std::istream& operator>>(std::istream& input, Date& d)
{
char forward_slash;
input >> d.month_num; input >> forward_slash;
input >> d.day_num; input >> forward_slash;
input >> d.year_num;
return input;
}
Overloading operator>> for the Date class will come in handy later.
Now the record class:
class Record
{
public:
std::string state;
std::string region;
std::string latitude;
std::string longitude;
// A container for the date subrecords
std::vector<Date> dates;
friend std::istream& operator>>(std::istream& input, Record& r);
};
std::istream& operator>>(std::istream& input, Record& r)
{
std::string text_line;
std::getline(input, text_line);
std::istringstream record_stream(text_line);
std::getline(record_stream, r.state, ',');
std::getline(record_stream, r.region, ',');
std::getline(record_stream, r.latitude, ',');
std::getline(record_stream, r.longitude, ',');
Date d;
while (record_stream >> d)
{
r.dates.push_back(d);
char comma;
record_stream >> comma;
}
return input;
}
The above function reads a text line of input, since the records are terminated by a newline. A stream is created from the text line. The stream helps in reading a variable quantity of dates.
Edit 1: Reading in the file
Your input code would look something like this:
std::vector<Record> database;
Record r;
while (fin >> r)
{
database.push_back(r);
}
Yes, you can use C-Strings and arrays, but C++ streams and std::vector simplify the code and simple code has less defects than complicated code.
Also, the std::vector and std::string classes manage dynamic memory for you. They expand as necessary. No need for checking for array overflows. They are also easier to pass. Passing arrays requires passing the capacity also (and maybe the quantity of elements in the array).