getline setting failbit along with eof - c++

I am aware of the origin of this behavior since it has been very well explained in multiple posts here in SO, some notable examples are:
Why is iostream::eof inside a loop condition considered wrong?
Use getline() without setting failbit
std::getline throwing when it hits eof
C++ istream EOF does not guarantee failbit?
And it is also included in the std::getline standard:
3) If no characters were extracted for whatever reason (not even the discarded delimiter), getline sets failbit and returns.
My question is how does one deal with this behavior, where you want your stream to catch a failbit exception for all cases except the one caused by reaching the eof, of a file with an empty last line. Is there something obvious that I am missing?
A MWE:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <fstream>
#include <sstream>
void f(const std::string & file_name, char comment) {
std::ifstream file(file_name);
file.exceptions(file.failbit);
try {
std::string line;
while (std::getline(file, line).good()) {
// empty getline sets failbit throwing an exception
if ((line[0] != comment) && (line.size() != 0)) {
std::stringstream ss(line);
// do stuff
}
}
}
catch (const std::ios_base::failure& e) {
std::cerr << "Caught an ios_base::failure.\n"
<< "Explanatory string: " << e.what() << '\n'
<< "Error code: " << e.code() << '\n';
}
}
int main() {
f("example.txt", '#');
}
where example.txt is a tab-delimited file, with its last line being only the \n char:
# This is a text file meant for testing
0 9
1 8
2 7
EDIT:
while(std::getline(file, line).good()){...} replicates the problem.

Another way to avoid setting failbit, is simply to refactor your if tests to detect the read of an empty-line. Since that is your final line in this case, you can simply return to avoid throwing the error, e.g.:
std::ifstream file (file_name);
file.exceptions (file.failbit);
try {
std::string line;
while (std::getline(file, line)) {
// detect empty line and return
if (line.size() == 0)
return;
if (line[0] != comment) {
std::stringstream ss(line);
// do stuff
}
}
}
...
You other alternative is to check whether eofbit is set in catch. If eofbit is set -- the read completed successfully. E.g.
catch (const std::ios_base::failure& e) {
if (!file.eof())
std::cerr << "Caught an ios_base::failure.\n"
<< "Explanatory string: " << e.what() << '\n'
<< "Error code: " /* << e.code() */ << '\n';
}

Edit: I misunderstood the OP, refer to David's answer above. This answer is for checking whether or not the file has a terminating newline.
At the end of your while (getline) loop, check for file.eof().
Suppose you just did std::getline() for the last line in the file.
If there is a \n after it, then std::getline() has read the delimiter and did not set eofbit. (In this case, the very next std::getline() will set eofbit.)
Whereas if there is no \n after it, then std::getline() has read EOF and did set eofbit.
In both cases, the very next std::getline() will trigger failbit and enter your exception handler.
PS: the line if ((line[0] != comment) && (line.size() != 0)) { is UB if line is empty. The conditions' order needs to be reversed.

Related

How to skip empty lines without string class

In the following code I can't use the std::string class.
I'm trying to read a file that has empty lines, and I want to ignore the empty lines when I encounter them.
I've tested out some ideas using a simplified example and a made-up text file containing empty lines.
int main() {
ifstream fin;
fin.open("test.txt");
if(fin.fail()){
cout << "Input file fail.";
exit(-1);
}
char line[10];
while(!fin.eof()){
fin.getline(line, 10);
if(line[0] == '\n')
cout << "skip" << "\n";
else
cout << line << "\n";
}
}
I've also tried things like strlen(line) == 1, but nothing worked so far.
What is the problem?
std::getline() already takes care of the '\n' character (it will be discarded), line[0] would contain '\0' in the case of an empty input.
Just compare for '\0' instead of '\n':
if(line[0] == '\0')
cout << "skip" << "\n";
else
cout << line << "\n";
I've also tried things like strlen(line) == 1
If so, shouldn't that have been strlen(line) == 0 for an empty line?
There are two problems with your code. The first is that your loop isn't correct. You have to check the result of the getline() call, not eof(). Please see Why is iostream::eof inside a loop condition considered wrong. That restructured loop becomes:
while (fin.getline(line, 10)) {
...
}
Next, when you read a line with getline() (and 10 seems really short for a line), the delimiter will not be part of the body. There will not be a \n in line when you're doing reading. You'll just have an empty string. So the right way to discard empty lines is:
while (fin.getline(line, 10)) {
if (line[0]) {
// we have contents!
}
}
Or really, std::string is just way better:
std::string line;
while (std::getline(fin, line)) {
if (!line.empty()) {
....
}
}
std::getline() discards the delimiter \n. But you might also want to consider that on some systems lines may be delimited by \r\n.

C++ ios::exceptions throws exception when everything is fine

Here is the code from cplusplus.com/reference
#include <iostream> // std::cerr
#include <fstream> // std::ifstream
int main () {
std::ifstream file;
file.exceptions ( std::ifstream::failbit | std::ifstream::badbit );
try {
file.open ("test.txt");
while (!file.eof()) file.get();
file.close();
}
catch (std::ifstream::failure e) {
std::cerr << "Exception opening/reading/closing file\n";
}
return 0;
}
My code is very similar
int main()
{
std::vector<int> numbers;
std::vector<std::ifstream *> ifs;
std::array<std::string, 3> files = {
"f1.txt", "f2.txt", "f3.txt"
};
for (int i = 0; i < files.size(); ++i) {
std::ifstream *_ifs = new std::ifstream;
ifs.push_back(_ifs);
ifs[i]->exceptions( std::ifstream::failbit | std::ifstream::badbit );
}
try {
int n;
std::string line;
for (int i = 0; i < files.size(); ++i) {
ifs[i]->open(files[i]);
while (!ifs[i]->eof()) {
std::getline(*ifs[i], line);
std::istringstream iss(line);
while (iss >> n) {
if (n % 3 == 0 && n % 5 == 0 && n % 7 == 0)
numbers.push_back(n);
}
}
ifs[i]->close();
}
} catch (std::ifstream::failure e) {
std::cerr << "Error reading from files: " << e.what() << std::endl;
return 1;
}
for (int i = 0; i < ifs.size(); ++i)
delete ifs[i];
ifs.clear();
std::cout << "Files have been read\n";
// Do something with numbers
// ...
}
The issue is that nothing is read. Exception is thrown almost immediatly. If I comment out failbit from exceptions everything works fine, but exceptions are not thrown when the files are missing on Windows. On Ubuntu, without failbit exceptions are thrown when the files are missing, and everything is read correctly. But with failbit on Ubuntu as well exception is thrown at the beginning of reading and nothing is read. I tried to google it. Found the example from cplusplus.com . And stackoverflow question where the answer was not to check for eof, but instead read this way while(getline(ifs, line)) { /* do something with line */ } . I tried this, and got no difference. Before I did these kinds of tasks throwing user defined classes. This time I decided to try standard library for that and it seems like I am missing something.
The problem is that std::ios_base::failbit gets set when the end of the file is reached: the lines are read OK. However, once there are no further lines std::ios_base::failbit will get set: that is how the end condition is detected. As a result, only the first file is being read.
If you'd had output inside the loop reading the file you'd see that the lines are actually read. Since you filter the values read I'd guess you don't see any numbers read because none of the numbers provided matches the condition.
The check for eof() doesn't help, of course, as reading the last line will stop reading with the newline character right before reaching the end of file but it won't set std::ios_base::eofbit: the bit is only set when EOF is actually touched but that only happens with the next character read.
Since you should always check whether something was read after attempting to read, the condition while (ifs[i]->eof()) is ill-advised (and it is a good example why you should not use cplusplus.com but rather cppreference.com). Instead you should use
while (std::getline(*ifs[i], line))
You might get better results reading each of the files in their own try/catch blocks. Personally, I don't think exceptions and I/O fit well together and I have never had any production code setting an exception mask. I'd recommend staying clear of setting the exception mask for streams.

fstream EOF unexpectedly throwing exception

My question is very similar to a previous one. I want to open and read a file. I want exceptions thrown if the file can't be opened, but I don't want exceptions thrown on EOF. fstreams seem to give you independent control over whether exceptions are thrown on EOF, on failures, and on other bad things, but it appears that EOF tends to also get mapped to the bad and/or fail exceptions.
Here's a stripped-down example of what I was trying to do. The function f() is supposed to return true if a file contains a certain word, false if it doesn't, and throw an exception if (say) the file doesn't exist.
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
bool f(const char *file)
{
ifstream ifs;
string word;
ifs.exceptions(ifstream::failbit | ifstream::badbit);
ifs.open(file);
while(ifs >> word) {
if(word == "foo") return true;
}
return false;
}
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
try {
bool r = f(argv[1]);
cout << "f returned " << r << endl;
} catch(...) {
cerr << "exception" << endl;
}
}
But it doesn't work, because basic fstream reading using operator>> is evidently one of the operations for which EOF sets the bad or the fail bit. If the file exists and does not contain "foo" the function does not return false as desired, but rather throws an exception.
The std::ios_base::failbit flag is also set when there's an attempted extraction when the file has reached the end, something which the behavior of the stream's boolean operator allows. You should set up an extra try-catch block in f() and rethrow the exception if it doesn't correspond with the end of file condition:
std::ifstream ifs;
std::string word;
ifs.exceptions(std::ifstream::failbit | std::ifstream::badbit);
try {
ifs.open(file);
while (ifs >> word) {
if (word == "foo") return true;
}
}
catch (std::ios_base::failure&) {
if (!ifs.eof())
throw;
}
return false;
If the goal is to throw an exception only in case of a problem when opening the file, why not write:
bool f(const char *file)
{
ifstream ifs;
string word;
ifs.open(file);
if (ifs.fail()) // throw only when needed
throw std::exception("Cannot open file !"); // more accurate exception
while (ifs >> word) {
if (word == "foo") return true;
}
return false;
}
You could of course set :
ifs.exceptions(ifstream::badbit);
before or after the the open, to throw an exception in case something really bad would happen during the reading.
basic_ios::operator bool() checks fail(), not !good(). Your loop tries to read one more word after EOF is reached. operator>>(stream&, string&) sets failbit if no characters were extracted. That's why you always exit with an exception.
It's hard to avoid that though. The stream reaches EOF state not when the last character is read, but when an attempt is made to read past the last character. If that happens in the middle of a word, then failbit is not set. If it happens in the beginning (e.g. if the input has trailing whitespace), then failbit is set. You can't really reliably end up in eof() && !fail() state.

While Loop contines forever to get end of input string

How do I run the while loop until the end of line or null character reached.
Here is my code
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
main()
{
char input[20];
cout<<"Enter a line: ";
cin>>input;
while(input!='\0')
{
cout<<"This is a text";
}
system("pause");
}
If you want to read until either a newline or a NUL, read one character at a time inside the loop.
#include<iostream>
int main()
{
char input;
std::cout << "Enter a line: " << std::flush;
while(std::cin >> input && input != '\n' && input != 0) {
std::cout << "This is a test\n";
}
}
Notes:
main requires a return type
Never, ever, say "using namespace std;"
Don't forget to flush if you want cout to appear immediately.
Notice the compound test in the while condition:
First, did the read succeed?
Next, is it not '\n' (one of your conditions).
Next, is it not NUL (the other of your conditions).
The body of the loop will be executed once per input character -- is that what you wanted?
But, consider if you have correctly specified your requirement. It is an unusual requirement -- why would there be a NUL in a text file, and why would you want to process each character individually?
In idiomatic C++, you can read the input file in a line at a time using std::getline:
std::string myString;
while(std::getline(std::cin, myString)) {
// process myString
}
If you just want to read in a single line:
std::string myString;
if(std::getline(std::cin, myString)) {
// process myString
}
Finally, if you want to read a line, and ignore its contents:
std::cin.ignore(std::numeric_limits<std::streamsize>::max(), '\n');
try something like:
i = 0;
while ((input[i] != '\0') && i < 20)
{
cout<<"This is a text";
i++;
}
Like this:
std::string line;
if (std::getline(std::cin, line))
{
std::cout << "Thank you, you said, \"" << line << "\".\n";
}
else
{
// error, e.g. EOF
}
If you want to read multiple lines, use a while loop instead:
while (std::getline(std::cin, line))
{
std::cout << "Thank you, you said, \"" << line << "\".\n";
}
The issue is that you're reading an entire chunk of text at once and then printing it until the input is '\0'. However, you're never actually updating this inside the loop. You can either use cin inside the loop to get the input, OR if you're trying to output each character, you can index the char array.

Use getline() without setting failbit

Is it possible use getline() to read a valid file without setting failbit? I would like to use failbit so that an exception is generated if the input file is not readable.
The following code always outputs basic_ios::clear as the last line - even if a valid input is specified.
test.cc:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
ifstream inf;
string line;
inf.exceptions(ifstream::failbit);
try {
inf.open(argv[1]);
while(getline(inf,line))
cout << line << endl;
inf.close();
} catch(ifstream::failure e) {
cout << e.what() << endl;
}
}
input.txt:
the first line
the second line
the last line
results:
$ ./a.out input.txt
the first line
the second line
the last line
basic_ios::clear
You can't. The standard says about getline:
If the function extracts no characters, it calls is.setstate(ios_base::failbit) which may throw ios_base::failure (27.5.5.4).
If your file ends with an empty line, i.e. last character is '\n', then the last call to getline reads no characters and fails. Indeed, how did you want the loop to terminate if it would not set failbit? The condition of the while would always be true and it would run forever.
I think that you misunderstand what failbit means. It does not mean that the file cannot be read. It is rather used as a flag that the last operation succeeded. To indicate a low-level failure the badbit is used, but it has little use for standard file streams. failbit and eofbit usually should not be interpreted as exceptional situations. badbit on the other hand should, and I would argue that fstream::open should have set badbit instead of failbit.
Anyway, the above code should be written as:
try {
ifstream inf(argv[1]);
if(!inf) throw SomeError("Cannot open file", argv[1]);
string line;
while(getline(inf,line))
cout << line << endl;
inf.close();
} catch(const std::exception& e) {
cout << e.what() << endl;
}