I want to read all lines from a file, line by line with a fstream variable.
For example:
#include <fstream>
fstream fsFile;
fsfile.open("file.txt", ios::in);
while (fsFile.getline(szLine, LINE_SIZE + 1))
{
cout << szLine << endl;
}
When I want to read all the lines but I got a line that is bigger than LINE_SIZE the fsFile.bad() returns true and I get it.
But, I want to know how is it that fsFile.getline(szLine, LINE_SIZE + 1) suddenly returns false?
I mean what is the return value of the function?
If its null and I think it is why is it null?
And when it is not null what it returns?
Thank you for your support.
Use the std::string version of getline:
std::ifstream fsFile("file.txt");
std::string line;
while(std::getline(fsFile, line)) {
std::cout << line << '\n';
}
getline (both versions) returns a reference to the stream, which is convertible to bool so you can check it's state (if the read failed, typically because we hit the end of the file).
This version of getline is definitely preferable, because by using a std::string you completely stop worrying about the memory buffer. No need to create it yourself and remember to destroy it, no need to worry about the size of the line.
Also, please reconsider your use of what are often considered bad practices: using namespace std; and endl.
Related
I began learning strings yesterday and wanted to manipulate it around by filling it with a text from a text file. However, upon filling it the cstring array only prints out the last word of the text file. I am a complete beginner, so I hope you can keep this beginner friendly. The lines I want to print from the file are:
"Hello World from UAE" - First line
"I like to program" - Second line
Now I did look around and eventually found a way and that is to use std::skipary or something like that but that did not print it the way I had envisioned, it prints letter by letter and skips each line in doing so.
here is my code:
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
#include <cctype>
using namespace std;
int main() {
ifstream myfile;
myfile.open("output.txt");
int vowels = 0, spaces = 0, upper = 0, lower = 0;
//check for error
if (myfile.fail()) {
cout << "Error opening file: ";
exit(1);
}
char statement[100];
while (!myfile.eof()) {
myfile >> statement;
}
for (int i = 0; i < 30; ++i) {
cout << statement << " ";
}
I'm not exactly sure what you try to do with output.txt's contents, but a clean way to read through a file's contents using C++ Strings goes like this:
if (std::ifstream in("output.txt"); in.good()) {
for (std::string line; std::getline(in, line); ) {
// do something with line
std::cout << line << '\n';
}
}
You wouldn't want to use char[] for that, in fact raw char arrays are hardly ever useful in modern C++.
Also - As you can see, it's much more concise to check if the stream is good than checking for std::ifstream::fail() and std::ifstream::eof(). Be optimistic! :)
Whenever you encounter output issues - either wrong or no output, the best practise is to add print (cout) statements wherever data change is occurring.
So I first modified your code as follows:
while (!myfile.eof()) {
myfile >> statement;
std::cout<<statement;
}
This way, the output I got was - all lines are printed but the last line gets printed twice.
So,
We understood that data is being read correctly and stored in statement.
This raises 2 questions. One is your question, other is why last line is printed twice.
To answer your question exactly, in every loop iteration, you're reading the text completely into statement. You're overwriting existing value. So whatever value you read last is only stored.
Once you fix that, you might come across the second question. It's very common and I myself came across that issue long back. So I'm gonna answer that as well.
Let's say your file has 3 lines:
line1
line2
line3
Initially your file control (pointer) is at the beginning, exactly where line 1 starts. After iterations when it comes to line3, we know it's last line as we input the data. But the loop control doesn't know that. For all it knows, there could be a million more lines. Only after it enters the loop condition THE NEXT TIME will it come to know that the file has ended. So the final value will be printed twice.
I am reading the contents of a file like this:
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;
char line[256];
ifstream infile(filename, ios::in);
if(infile){
while (infile.getline(line, 256)) {
std::cout << line << std::endl;
}
}
In the while-loop I want to do some things but only in all n-1 iterations, not in the very last iteration (line of the file)...so I thought of something like infile.hasNextLine() but unforunately I were not able to find something doing this.
How can this behaviour be achieved in C++?
Is counting the lines in the file the only way to do this?
You can use peek():
if (infile.peek()!=EOF)
...
If you have read the last line, there's nothing more to read and peek() will return EOF. Inversely, if peek() returns something else, it means that there is still data to read so a next line.
An alternative way is doing what you want to do in the 2-n iterations and don't do it in the first iteration. I am guessing you want to do some stuff between two lines?
I have a bug with my code (the code at the end of the question). The purpose of my C++ executable is to read a file that contains numbers, copy it in a std::vector and
then just print the contents in the stdout? Where is the problem? (atoi?)
I have a simple text file that contains the following numbers (each line has one number)
mini01:algorithms ios$ cat numbers.txt
1
2
3
4
5
When I execute the program I receive one more line:
mini01:algorithms ios$ ./a.out
1
2
3
4
5
0
Why I get the 6th line in the stdout?
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <fstream>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;
void algorithm(std::vector<int>& v) {
for(int i=0; i < v.size(); i++) {
cout << v[i] << endl;
}
}
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
string line;
std::vector<int> vector1;
ifstream myfile("numbers.txt");
if ( myfile.is_open()) {
while( myfile.good() )
{
getline(myfile, line);
vector1.push_back(atoi(line.c_str()));
}
myfile.close();
}
else {
cout << "Unable to open file" << endl;
}
algorithm(vector1);
return 0;
}
You should not use while (myfile.good()), as it will loop once to many.
Instead use
while (getline(...))
The reason you can't use the flags to check for looping, is that they don't get set until after an input/output operation notices the problem (error or end-of-file).
Don't use good() as the condition of your extraction loop. It does not accurately indicate whether the next read will succeed or not. Move your call to getline into the condition:
while(getline(myfile, line))
{
vector1.push_back(atoi(line.c_str()));
}
The reason it is failing in this particular case is because text files typically have an \n at the end of the file (that is not shown by text editors). When the last line is read, this \n is extracted from the stream. Yes, that may be the very last character in the file, but getline doesn't care to look any further than the \n it has extracted. It's done. It does not set the EOF flag or do anything else to cause good() to return false.
So at the next iteration, good() is still true, the loop continues and getline attempts to extract from the file. However, now there's nothing left to extract and you just get line set to an empty string. This then gets converted to an int and pushed into the vector1, giving you the extra value.
In fact, the only robust way to check if there is a problem with extraction is to check the stream's status bits after extracting. The easiest way to do this is to make the extraction itself the condition.
You read one too many lines, since the condition while is false AFTER you had a "bad read".
Welcome to the wonderful world of C++. Before we go to the bug first, I would advise you to drop the std:: namespace resolution before defining or declaring a vector as you already have
using namespace::std;
A second advise would be to use the pre increment operator ++i instead of i++ wherever feasible. You can see more details on that here.
Coming to your problem in itself, the issue is an empty new line being read at the end of file. A simple way to avoid this would be to check the length of line before using it.
getline(myfile, line);
if (line.size()) {
vector1.push_back(atoi(line.c_str()));
}
This would enable your program now to read a file interspersed with empty lines. To be further foolproof you can check the line read for presence of any non numeric characters before using atoi on it. However the best solution as mentioned would be use to read the line read to the loop evaluation.
Ok so this is killing me at the moment cause its such a simple part of my program that just doesn't want to work. I'm reading data from a textfile to use in a GA.
The first getline() works perfectly, but the second one doesn't want to write any data into my string. When i cout the string it doesn't show anything.
Here is the code:
ifstream inFile;
inFile.open(fname.c_str());
char pop[20], mut[20];
inFile.getline(pop,20);
cout << pop;
inFile.getline(mut,20);
cout << mut; //this outputs nothing
Thanks for any help in advance.
A sample form my file:
there is no line between them mutation is the line straight after population
Population size: 30
Mutation: 20
Your file's first line is 20 characters long (19+new line) but pop[20] can only contain 19 (because the last one is reserved for the null terminator '\0').
When istream::getline stops because it has extracted 20-1 characters, it doesn't discard the new line delimiter (because it was never read). So the next getline just reads the end of the first line, discarding the new line.
That's why you get nothing in the second string.
Your problem is that the length of your input line exceeds the length of the buffer which must hold it.
The solution is to not use character arrays. This is C++, use std::string!
std::ifstream inFile;
inFile.open(fname.c_str());
std::string pop;
std::getline(inFile, pop);
cout << pop << "\n";
std::string mut;
std::getline(inFile, mut);
cout << mut << "\n";
I think you need to find out what the problem is. Add error checking code to your getline calls, refactor the (simple) code into a (simple) function, with a (simple) unittest. Possibly, your second line is longer than the assumed 20 characters (null-term included!).
For an idea of what I mean, take a look at this snippet.
try something like
while (getline(in,line,'\n')){
//do something with line
}
or try something like
string text;
string temp;
ifstream file;
file.open ("test_text.txt");
while (!file.eof())
{
getline (file, temp);
text.append (temp); // Added this line
}
I'm trying to store strings directly into a file to be read later in C++ (basically for the full scope I'm trying to store an object array with string variables in a file, and those string variables will be read through something like object[0].string). However, everytime I try to read the string variables the system gives me a jumbled up error. The following codes are a basic part of what I'm trying.
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;
/*
//this is run first to create the file and store the string
int main(){
string reed;
reed = "sees";
ofstream ofs("filrsee.txt", ios::out|ios::binary);
ofs.write(reinterpret_cast<char*>(&reed), sizeof(reed));
ofs.close();
}*/
//this is run after that to open the file and read the string
int main(){
string ghhh;
ifstream ifs("filrsee.txt", ios::in|ios::binary);
ifs.read(reinterpret_cast<char*>(&ghhh), sizeof(ghhh));
cout<<ghhh;
ifs.close();
return 0;
}
The second part is where things go haywire when I try to read it.
Sorry if it's been asked before, I've taken a look around for similar questions but most of them are a bit different from what I'm trying to do or I don't really understand what they're trying to do (still quite new to this).
What am I doing wrong?
You are reading from a file and trying to put the data in the string structure itself, overwriting it, which is plain wrong.
As it can be verified at http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/iostream/istream/read/ , the types you used were wrong, and you know it because you had to force the std::string into a char * using a reinterpret_cast.
C++ Hint: using a reinterpret_cast in C++ is (almost) always a sign you did something wrong.
Why is it so complicated to read a file?
A long time ago, reading a file was easy. In some Basic-like language, you used the function LOAD, and voilà!, you had your file.
So why can't we do it now?
Because you don't know what's in a file.
It could be a string.
It could be a serialized array of structs with raw data dumped from memory.
It could even be a live stream, that is, a file which is appended continuously (a log file, the stdin, whatever).
You could want to read the data word by word
... or line by line...
Or the file is so large it doesn't fit in a string, so you want to read it by parts.
etc..
The more generic solution is to read the file (thus, in C++, a fstream), byte per byte using the function get (see http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/iostream/istream/get/), and do yourself the operation to transform it into the type you expect, and stopping at EOF.
The std::isteam interface have all the functions you need to read the file in different ways (see http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/iostream/istream/), and even then, there is an additional non-member function for the std::string to read a file until a delimiter is found (usually "\n", but it could be anything, see http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/string/getline/)
But I want a "load" function for a std::string!!!
Ok, I get it.
We assume that what you put in the file is the content of a std::string, but keeping it compatible with a C-style string, that is, the \0 character marks the end of the string (if not, we would need to load the file until reaching the EOF).
And we assume you want the whole file content fully loaded once the function loadFile returns.
So, here's the loadFile function:
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
bool loadFile(const std::string & p_name, std::string & p_content)
{
// We create the file object, saying I want to read it
std::fstream file(p_name.c_str(), std::fstream::in) ;
// We verify if the file was successfully opened
if(file.is_open())
{
// We use the standard getline function to read the file into
// a std::string, stoping only at "\0"
std::getline(file, p_content, '\0') ;
// We return the success of the operation
return ! file.bad() ;
}
// The file was not successfully opened, so returning false
return false ;
}
If you are using a C++11 enabled compiler, you can add this overloaded function, which will cost you nothing (while in C++03, baring optimizations, it could have cost you a temporary object):
std::string loadFile(const std::string & p_name)
{
std::string content ;
loadFile(p_name, content) ;
return content ;
}
Now, for completeness' sake, I wrote the corresponding saveFile function:
bool saveFile(const std::string & p_name, const std::string & p_content)
{
std::fstream file(p_name.c_str(), std::fstream::out) ;
if(file.is_open())
{
file.write(p_content.c_str(), p_content.length()) ;
return ! file.bad() ;
}
return false ;
}
And here, the "main" I used to test those functions:
int main()
{
const std::string name(".//myFile.txt") ;
const std::string content("AAA BBB CCC\nDDD EEE FFF\n\n") ;
{
const bool success = saveFile(name, content) ;
std::cout << "saveFile(\"" << name << "\", \"" << content << "\")\n\n"
<< "result is: " << success << "\n" ;
}
{
std::string myContent ;
const bool success = loadFile(name, myContent) ;
std::cout << "loadFile(\"" << name << "\", \"" << content << "\")\n\n"
<< "result is: " << success << "\n"
<< "content is: [" << myContent << "]\n"
<< "content ok is: " << (myContent == content)<< "\n" ;
}
}
More?
If you want to do more than that, then you will need to explore the C++ IOStreams library API, at http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/iostream/
You can't use std::istream::read() to read into a std::string object. What you could do is to determine the size of the file, create a string of suitable size, and read the data into the string's character array:
std::string str;
std::ifstream file("whatever");
std::string::size_type size = determine_size_of(file);
str.resize(size);
file.read(&str[0], size);
The tricky bit is determining the size the string should have. Given that the character sequence may get translated while reading, e.g., because line end sequences are transformed, this pretty much amounts to reading the string in the general case. Thus, I would recommend against doing it this way. Instead, I would read the string using something like this:
std::string str;
std::ifstream file("whatever");
if (std::getline(file, str, '\0')) {
...
}
This works OK for text strings and is about as fast as it gets on most systems. If the file can contain null characters, e.g., because it contains binary data, this doesn't quite work. If this is the case, I'd use an intermediate std::ostringstream:
std::ostringstream out;
std::ifstream file("whatever");
out << file.rdbuf();
std::string str = out.str();
A string object is not a mere char array, the line
ifs.read(reinterpret_cast<char*>(&ghhh), sizeof(ghhh));
is probably the root of your problems.
try applying the following changes:
char[BUFF_LEN] ghhh;
....
ifs.read(ghhh, BUFF_LEN);