C++: Reading from multiple files with spaces in their names - c++

Question

Essential to this problem is, that i am programming on Xcode. I wrote a function that reads in a given amount of text files into my sensor vector: To get the text file Paths i wrote also a function that gives me the filenames inclusive their paths and stores them in a list. The text files contain data that are delimited by a tab and will be stored in excel later on. The problem is they include spaces in their names and Mac has a problem with spaces in file names. I tried to replace the spaces with "\ ". This is what the terminal does with a space when i echo a file with a space in it. I cant open the files to read from them. I appreciate your help.
The path function:
void get_filelist(list<string>& list_in)
{
string full_path;
DIR *dir;
struct dirent *ent;
if((dir = opendir (dir_target.c_str()))!=NULL)
{
while((ent = readdir (dir)) != NULL)
{
if(strstr(ent->d_name, ".txt") && !strstr(ent->d_name, "Summary"))
{
full_path = dir_target;
full_path = full_path + ent->d_name;
list_in.push_back(full_path);
}
}
closedir(dir);
}
else{
printf("could not open directory");
perror("");
}
}
now here is the function that writes into my 3D vector
void fill_vector(list<string> list_in, data_vec& sensors)
{
ifstream myfile;
size_t found;
for(list<string>::iterator it = list_in.begin(); it!= list_in.end(); it++)
{
string tab = "";
vector<vector<string> > temp_matrix;
cout << *it << endl;
myfile.open(*it);
if(myfile.is_open())
{
vector<string> temp_row;
while(myfile.is_open())
{
getline(myfile, tab, '\t');
found = tab.find('\n');
if(found == string::npos) temp_row.push_back(tab);
else{
temp_row.push_back(tab.substr(0, found));
temp_matrix.push_back(temp_row);
temp_row.clear();
temp_row.push_back(tab.substr(found+1));
}
}
myfile.close();
}
else cout << "unable to open file" ;
sensors.push_back(temp_matrix);
}
}

Answer 1

Don't use backs;ash to denote spaces in filenames or you'll get into an even worse mess. Backslash is directory separator on MS DOS.
If
fopen("path/my file.txt", "w");
and
fopen("path/my filetxt", "r");
both work as expected (creating a file with a space in its name and opening it) you don't really have a problem. The rest of the system has the problem, but if you must have files with spaces in their names, you can read and write them.
Of course convert to hyphen, underscores or simple concatenation as soon as possible, spaces in filenames make for endless problems.
The function
std::string spacesToUnderscores(std:string const &nasty)
is easy enough to write.