writing after reading using fstream - c++

I am under the impression fstream objects in c++ can be used to both read and write, using the same stream.
I have successfully been able to first write to a stream and then read from it. If I however try to write to it again the file is not affected.
Here is a code example that successfully compiles on windows using MinGw:
int main()
{
std::string path="file.txt";
std::fstream fs(path.c_str());
int buffSize=100;
int bytesRead=0;
char* buffer=new char[buffSize];
fs.write("hello", 5);
fs.seekp(0, std::ios::beg);
fs.read(buffer, buffSize);
bytesRead=fs.gcount();
for(int i=0;i<bytesRead;i++) {std::cout << buffer[i];}
std::cout << "\n";
fs.clear();
fs.seekp(1, std::ios::beg);
fs.write("E", 1);
std::cout << "fail: " << fs.fail() << "\n";
delete[] buffer;
}
The initial content of "file.txt" was only:
AAAAAAA
And the program outputs:
helloAA
fail: 0
Looking at the file in a text editor after running the program shows that the final content is:
helloAA
The final writing of the "E" has not taken effect, why is this and how do I fix it?
EDIT:
I tried using fs.clear() before writing again as user 0x499602D2 suggested. Also added a line printing out whether the failbit or badbit has been set or not and updated the program output. The final file content stays the same however, the problem remains.

(more verbose answer from what I posted in comments on the question)
You need to call flush() on output stream objects (derived from ostream) in order for the data to actually be written on the output stream. More information on flush() is available on this c++ reference page.

This work in GCC 4.9.0 and VS2013.
Notes:
seekg is for move the read pointer
seekp is for move the write pointer
In the sample code in line fs.seekp(0, std::ios::beg); need to be seekg. There is no problem because the read pointer has not been move (there is no read until there).
Code:
#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
std::string path = "H:\\save.txt";
int buffSize = 100;
int bytesRead = 0;
char* buffer = new char[buffSize];
std::fstream fs(path.c_str());
fs.write("hello", 5);
fs.flush(); // flushing to disk file
fs.seekg(0, std::ios_base::beg); // moving the read pointer
fs.read(buffer, buffSize);
bytesRead = fs.gcount();
for (int i = 0; i < bytesRead; i++) {
std::cout << buffer[i];
}
std::cout << "\n";
fs.clear();
fs.seekp(1, std::ios::beg);
fs.write("E", 1);
fs.flush(); // flushing to disk file
std::cout << "fail: " << fs.fail() << "\n";
delete[] buffer;
return 0;
}

string data="";
string Newdata="New Data";
std::fstream output_file(fileName, ios::in| ios::out);
output_file >> data; //read Data
output_file.seekg( 0, ios::beg );//set point to zero
output_file<<Newdata<<"\n"; //write new Data
output_file.close();

once you read a file using fstream, tellg < read pointer > and tellp < write pointer > points to -1.
to be able to write again using fstream, just call fstream.clear() and it will reset read and write pointer to where it was before reading.
none of the solution posted above work but fstream.clear() works.

Related

C++ ofstream Binary Mode - Written file still looks like plain text

I have an assignment that wants plain text data to be read in from a file, and then outputted to a separate binary file. With that being said, I expect to see that the contents of the binary file not to be intelligible for human reading. However, when I open the binary file the contents are still appearing as plain text. I am setting the mode like this _file.open(OUTFILE, std::ios::binary). I can't seem to figure out what I'm missing. I've followed other examples with different methods of implementation, but there's obviously something I'm missing.
For the purpose of posting, I created a slimmed down test case to demonstrate what I'm attempting.
Thanks in advance, help is greatly appreciated!
Input File: test.txt
Hello World
main.cpp
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;
#define INFILE "test.txt"
#define OUTFILE "binary-output.dat"
int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
char* text = nullptr;
int nbytes = 0;
// open text file
fstream input(INFILE, std::ios::in);
if (!input) {
throw "\n***Failed to open file " + string(INFILE) + " ***\n";
}
// copy from file into memory
input.seekg(0, std::ios::end);
nbytes = (int)input.tellg() + 1;
text = new char[nbytes];
input.seekg(ios::beg);
int i = 0;
input >> noskipws;
while (input.good()) {
input >> text[i++];
}
text[nbytes - 1] = '\0';
cout << "\n" << nbytes - 1 << " bytes copied from file " << INFILE << " into memory (null byte added)\n";
if (!text) {
throw "\n***No data stored***\n";
} else {
// open binary file for writing
ofstream _file;
_file.open(OUTFILE, std::ios::binary);
if (!_file.is_open()) {
throw "\n***Failed to open file***\n";
} else {
// write data into the binary file and close the file
for (size_t i = 0U; i <= strlen(text); ++i) {
_file << text[i];
}
_file.close();
}
}
}
As stated here, std::ios::binary isn't actually going to write binary for you. Basically, it's the same as std::ios::out except things like \n aren't converted to line breaks.
You can convert text to binary by using <bitset>, like this:
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <bitset>
int main() {
std::string str = "String in plain text";
std::vector<std::bitset<8>> binary; // A vector of binaries
for (unsigned long i = 0; i < str.length(); ++i) {
std::bitset<8> bs4(str[i]);
binary.push_back(bs4);
}
return 0;
}
And then write to your file.
In simplest terms, the flag std::ios::binary means:
Do not make any adjustments to my output to aid in readability or conformance to operating system standards. Write exactly what I send.
In your case, you are writing readable text and the file contains exactly what you sent.
You could also write bytes that are unintelligible when viewed as text. In that case, your file would be unintelligible when viewed as text.

Weird behavior with ifstreams and rdbuf()

I've noticed that using .rdbuf() on an ifstream seems to change it somehow. The following code should show the problem.
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
ifstream ifs("Sample.csv");
cout << "Reading buffer: " << endl;
cout << ifs.rdbuf(); // Outputs buffer as expected
cout << "Reading buffer again: " << endl;
cout << ifs.rdbuf(); // Returns nothing
return 0;
}
The reason this is bothering me is that I'm currently trying to copy the contents of one text file into another using ofstream ofs; ofs << ifs.rdbuf(). This works fine but makes reading from ifs using getline(ifs, str) fail, effectively "breaking" the stream.
This isn't particularly "weird"; it's the same stream behaviour you see every day. rdbuf isn't like std::stringstream::str() and it isn't magic — it's a pointer to the buffer, that your cout is then reading from just as you would read from the original stream yourself:
std::stringstream ss("1");
int x;
if (ss >> x)
cout << x;
if (ss >> x) // doesn't work a second time; "1" is already extracted
cout << x;
As your stream is a file stream, you can seek it back to the beginning to start from scratch (which will inherently do the same to its underlying buffer).
ifs.rdbuf() returns a pointer to the ifs's corresponding stream buffer object. Sending it to std::cout via << overload pulls information from the stream until the end of the buffer is reached (eof). Calling .rdbuf() again returns "nothing" because there's nothing to read at the end of the buffer. The buffer seek position be explicitly reset to zero by calling ifs.seekg (0);.

edit: trouble checking if file is empty or not, what am I doing wrong?

Edit: changed my question to be more accurate of the situation
I'm trying to open up a text file (create it if it doesnt exist,open it if it doesnt). It is the same input file as output.
ofstream oFile("goalsFile.txt");
fstream iFile("goalsFile.txt");
string goalsText;
string tempBuffer;
//int fileLength = 0;
bool empty = false;
if (oFile.is_open())
{
if (iFile.is_open())
{
iFile >> tempBuffer;
iFile.seekg(0, iFile.end);
size_t fileLength = iFile.tellg();
iFile.seekg(0, iFile.beg);
if (fileLength == 0)
{
cout << "Set a new goal\n" << "Goal Name:"; //if I end debugging her the file ends up being empty
getline(cin, goalSet);
oFile << goalSet;
oFile << ";";
cout << endl;
cout << "Goal Cost:";
getline(cin, tempBuffer);
goalCost = stoi(tempBuffer);
oFile << goalCost;
cout << endl;
}
}
}
Couple of issues. For one, if the file exist and has text within it, it still goes into the if loop that would normally ask me to set a new goal. I can't seem to figure out what's happening here.
The problem is simply that you are using buffered IO streams. Despite the fact that they reference the same file underneath, they have completely separate buffers.
// open the file for writing and erase existing contents.
std::ostream out(filename);
// open the now empty file for reading.
std::istream in(filename);
// write to out's buffer
out << "hello";
At this point, "hello" may not have been written to disk, the only guarantee is that it's in the output buffer of out. To force it to be written to disk you could use
out << std::endl; // new line + flush
out << std::flush; // just a flush
that means that we've committed our output to disk, but the input buffer is still untouched at this point, and so the file still appears to be empty.
In order for your input file to see what you've written to the output file, you'd need to use sync.
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
static const char* filename = "testfile.txt";
int main()
{
std::string hello;
{
std::ofstream out(filename);
std::ifstream in(filename);
out << "hello\n";
in >> hello;
std::cout << "unsync'd read got '" << hello << "'\n";
}
{
std::ofstream out(filename);
std::ifstream in(filename);
out << "hello\n";
out << std::flush;
in.sync();
in >> hello;
std::cout << "sync'd read got '" << hello << "'\n";
}
}
The next problem you'll run into trying to do this with buffered streams is the need to clear() the eof bit on the input stream every time more data is written to the file...
Try Boost::FileSystem::is_empty which test if your file is empty. I read somewhere that using fstream's is not a good way to test empty files.

end of an Exe file in C++

I am writing a C++ program to read an exe file. I wrote it and I test it on a text file instead of exe file. it was true.
when I test it with an exe file I understand that my exe file have 0x00 value in it (not at its end). so my while loop stop before end of file because I used:
class A{
private:
ifstream myFile;
void Read(char *filename)
};
void A::Read(char *str)
{
myFile.open(str,ios::binary);
while (!myFile.eof())
{
InputFile.get(ch);
myString.push_back(ch);
}
}
what should I do? if I should use size of the file, how can i get it?
You must open the file stream with the std::ios::binary mode flag.
As James McNellis pointed out you need to open the file in binary mode: Try something like the following:
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
int main()
{
std::ifstream in("main.obj", std::ios_base::binary);
std::streamsize bytes_read = 0;
if (in.is_open())
{
while (!in.eof())
{
char buf[1024];
// Use unformatted read.
in.read(buf, 1024);
if (in.gcount() > 0)
{
// The first 'in.gcount()' chars in
// 'buf' were read.
bytes_read += in.gcount();
}
}
}
in.close();
std::cout << "bytes read=" << bytes_read << "\n";
return 0;
}
EDIT:
Example modified to use get():
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
int main()
{
std::ifstream in("main.obj", std::ios_base::binary);
std::streamsize bytes_read = 0;
if (in.is_open())
{
while (!in.eof())
{
in.get();
if (1 == in.gcount())
{
bytes_read++;
}
}
}
in.close();
std::cout << "bytes read=" << bytes_read << "\n";
return 0;
}
Tested and works correctly.
In addition to opening the file in binary mode, the current code has a subtle bug which will cause the last character in the file to be read twice. The problem is that the myFile.eof() call does not do what you think it does. It does not tell you when you're at the end of the file. It tells you that you have tried to read beyond the end of the file. The idiomatic way to write a read-until-eof loop in C++ is:
while (myFile.get(ch))
myString.push_back(ch);
get returns an istream reference which, in this context, is implicitly convertible to bool and is used to indicate that there is no more data to read.
Only a hunch here, but my suspicion is that you're actually reading the whole file correctly, but measuring it wrong.
File reading (with binary mode) won't stop on a 0-byte, but there are several string related methods that will.
For example, you can't measure the size of a binary "blob" using strlen(), you can't copy it using strcpy().
Without seeing the actual way you're storing and measuring the data, it's hard to see where things go wrong, but I strongly suspect that you're actually reading the whole file correctly if you're using binary mode.
I found my mistake, The program read all the bytes but I cout that bytes in a vector<char>, So it's obvious I saw just bytes before 0x00.

I'm trying to set up a file stream or something like that, but I'm very confused as to what I'm supposed to do

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
int main() {
std::ofstream outfile("text.txt", ios::trunc);
std::ifstream infile("text.txt", ios::trunc);
outfile.seekp(0);
std::cout << "This is a file";
infile.seekg(0, ios::end);
int length = infile.tellg();
infile.read(0, length);
infile.close();
outfile.close();
return 0;
}
I think I get the idea behind this, but I feel like (and I'm pretty sure) I have no idea what I'm doing. I've looked it up and everything has confused me. I've read through a C++ reference, and then I googled it, but I still don't understand what I'm doing wrong.
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <cstring>
int main() {
std::fstream file("text.txt", std::ios_base::in | std::ios_base::out);
file << "This is a file";
int length = file.tellg();
std::string uberstring;
file >> uberstring;
std::cout << uberstring;
char *buffer = new char[length + 1];
file.read(buffer, length);
buffer[length] = '\0';
file.close();
delete [] buffer;
return 0;
}
I tried this, but it isn't printing anything. Why isn't this working?
If you want to read and write to the same file, just use a normal std::fstream ... there is no need to attempt and open the same file as both a ifstream and ofstream. Also if you want to write data to the file, use the operator<< on the actual fstream instance object, not std::cout ... that will simply write to wherever std::cout is set, which is typically the console. Finally, the call to read has to go back into a buffer, you can't use NULL as an argument. So your code would change to the following:
int main()
{
std::fstream file("text.txt", ios_base::in | ios_base::out);
//outfile.seekp(0); <== not needed since you just opened the file
file << "This is a file"; //<== use the std::fstream instance "file"
//file.seekg(0, ios::end); <== not needed ... you're already at the end
int length = file.tellg();
//you have to read back into a buffer
char* buffer = new char[length + 1];
infile.read(buffer, length);
buffer[length] = '\0'; //<== NULL terminate the string
file.close();
delete [] buffer;
return 0;
}