Reading / Writing Strings to Binary Files - c++

Question

I have been experiencing a bug for the past day that I have not been able to solve.
I have my first method which is for saving player data:
bool Player::savePlayerData() {
ofstream writeFile(getName() + ".bin", ios::out | ios::binary | ios::trunc);
string writeData;
writeData = formatEntityData() + "<" + formatLocationData() + "<" + formatInventory();
writeFile.write(writeData.c_str(), writeData.length() + 1);
writeFile.close();
return true;
}
Note: Assume that getName(), formatEntityData(), formatLocationData(), and formatInventory() return strings and are functional.
Then I have my load player data method:
bool Player::loadPlayerData(string name) {
ifstream readFile(name + ".bin", ios::in | ios::binary | ios::_Nocreate);
if (readFile.good() && readFile.is_open()) {
string data;
getline(readFile, data, '\0');
vector<string> str = split(data, '<');
parseEntityData(str.at(0));
parseLocationData(str.at(1));
parseInventory(str.at(2));
readFile.close();
return true;
}
readFile.close();
return false;
}
Note: Assume that parseEntityData(), parseLocationData(), parseInventory() have string param, void returns and are functional
Note: Assume that split(string, char) takes in a string with a delim. char and splits into vector correctly
So, here is what I am trying to accomplish (for purposes of simplicity lets assume getName() return "luke"):
•Create luke.bin
•Save string to luke.bin in binary
•Load data from luke.bin in form of a string
When I run the program is not properly reading the player data. Instead it is returning as if nothing is in the file. What am I doing wrong? Any tips, ideas, or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Code on brothers!

Answer 1

Typically when you open a binary file in notepad++ it gives seemingly
random characters
It depends on data. The string "Hell world" is the same in binary or text. Numbers will appear as text if they are text formatted.
Example of text format:
fout << 1234 << std::endl; //saved as "1234"
Example of binary data:
int i = 1234;
fout.write(&i, sizeof(i)); //saved as 2 bytes, big-endian or little endian binary
ios::binary stops translation of new line characters.
When writing to file, put the exact size:
writeFile.write(writeData.c_str(), writeData.length());
When reading the file, getline(fin, data, '\0'); will stop when it reaches zero or end of file. You should use EOF instead of zero. Better yet, use this method:
std::ifstream f(filename, ios::binary);
if (f.good())
{
f.seekg(0, ios::end);
size_t filesize = (size_t)f.tellg();
f.seekg(0);
std::string data(filesize, 0);
f.read(&data[0], filesize);
cout << data << endl;
return true;
}
return false;