Writing and reading from the same file - c++

Question

This program takes in an input, write it on a file character by character, count the amount of characters entered, then at the end copy it to an array of characters. The program works just fine until we get to the following snippet file.getline(arr, inputLength);. It changes the .txt file data and returns only the first character of the original input.
Any ideas?
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;
int getLine(char *& arr);
int main() {
char * arr = NULL;
cout << "Write something: ";
getLine(arr);
return 0;
}
int getLine(char *& arr) {
fstream file("temp.txt");
char input = '\0'; //initialize
int inputLength = 0; //initialize
if (file.is_open()) {
while (input != '\n') { //while the end of this line is not reached
input = cin.get(); //get each single character
file << input; //write it on a .txt file
inputLength++; //count the number of characters entered
}
arr = new char[inputLength]; //dynamically allocate memory for this array
file.getline(arr, inputLength); //HERE IS THE PROBLEM!!! ***
cout << "Count : " << inputLength << endl; //test counter
cout << "Array : " << arr << endl; //test line copy
file.close();
return 1;
}
return 0;
}

Answer 1

I see at least two problems with this code.
1) std::fstream constructor, by default, will open an existing file. It will not create a new one. If temp.txt does not exist, is_open() will fail. This code should pass the appropriate value for the second parameter to std::fstreams constructor that specifies that either a new file needs to be created, or the existing file is created.
Related to this: if the file already exists, running this code will not truncate it, so the contents of the file from this program's previous run will have obvious unexpected results.
2) The intent of this code appears to be to read back in the contents temp.txt that were previously written to it. To do that correctly, after writing and before reading it is necessary to seek back to the beginning of the file. This part appears to be missing.

Answer 2

There is no need in dynamic allocation because the std library functions get confused with mixed arguments such as cstring and pointer to cstring.I tested this code in Visual Studio 2015 compiler. It works good. Make sure to include all of the needed libraries:
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include<cstring>
#include<string>
using namespace std;
void getLine();
int main() {
cout << "Write something: ";
// no need to pass a pointer to a cstring
getLine();
system("pause");
return 0;
}
void getLine() {
char input[100]; // this is a cstring with
//a safe const number of elements
int inputLength; //to extract length of the actual input
//this function requires cstring as a first argument
// and constant length as a second
cin.get(input, 100, '\n'); //get each single character
//cast streamsize into int
inputLength = static_cast<int>(cin.gcount());
//testing input
cout << "Input: \n";
for (int i = 0; i < inputLength; i++)
{
cout << input[i];
}
cout << endl;
char arr[100];
strcpy_s(arr, input);
cout << "Count : " << inputLength << endl; //test counter
cout << "Array : " << endl; //test line copy
for (int i = 0; i < inputLength; i++)
{
cout << arr[i];
}
cout << endl;
// write cstring to a file
ofstream file;
file.open("temp.txt", ios::out);
if (file.is_open())
{
//write only what was entered in input
for (int i = 0; i < inputLength; i++)
file << arr[i];
file.close();
}
else cout << "Unable to open file";
}