Need help deleting loaded array and clearing it from count - c++

Question

I have been messing around with some code. I've really just mashed things together and exploring ways to get what I want out of it.
Right now something that has been bothering me is that when I try to delete a user it leaves the user blank instead of deleting it completely. I would rather it delete/remove the line completely and adjust the count without removing any other user data.
EDIT:
The problem is that after I delete a user. When I list every user it displays a blank User: pass: etc instead of not listing those to begin with. if I were to save the file it would have 5 empty spaces. I'd rather it remove those lines completely as if they were never there to begin with.
This is how I load the code:
int Loadpdata()
{
ifstream fp_in;
if(count > 0)
{
cout << "pdata already Loaded.\nTotal of " << count << " users loaded." << endl;
return 0;
}
fp_in.open("p.data"); //Open user file
if(fp_in == NULL)
{
cout << "Could not open user file, exiting." << endl;
}
while(!fp_in.eof()) { //While there is something to read
getline(fp_in,userd[count]);
getline(fp_in,passd[count]); //Read a line from the file
getline(fp_in,aged[count]); //Read a line from the file
getline(fp_in,locationd[count]); //Read a line from the file
getline(fp_in,emaild[count]); //Read a line from the file
getline(fp_in,mid[count]); //Read a line from the file
cout << "User: " << userd[count] << " Loaded Successfully." << endl;
userstotal++;
count++;
}
fp_in.close(); //Done with the user file
cout << "Total Users Loaded: " << count << endl;
if(!count > 0)
{
cout << "Userlist is empty, exiting" << endl;
return -2;
}
return 0;
}
Now this is how I delete the user:
int Deletedata()
{
char user[80];
int logged_in=0;
while(!logged_in) { //Force user to login. Give a quit option if you'd like
cout << "Enter user name: ";
cin >> user;
int found = 0;
for(int x=0;x<count && !found;x++) { //For each user/password pair..
if(userd[x].compare(user) == 0) { //Matched the username
found = 1;
logged_in = 1;
userd[x].clear();
passd[x].clear();
aged[x].clear();
locationd[x].clear();
emaild[x].clear();
mid[x].clear();
}
}
if(!found) {
cout << "Invalid username!" << endl;
}
}
//Once we're done with that loop, they logged in successfully.
cout << "Deleted " << user << " Successfully." << endl;
return 0;
}
The more I think about this the more I realize I may have to scrap it and come up with a new format.

Answer 1

If you want to just remove one entry and not touch any of the other entries, you'll need to use a node-based container, e.g., a std::list<T> or a std::map<K, V> (the latter would match your needs of locating an object by a key anyway).
That said, if you want to stick with an array and fill the gap, you have two principle options:
If you don't care about the order of the objects, you could just std::swap() the to-be-removed object with the last copy and then remove the newly last element.
If the order matters to you, you'll need to move all the objects after the gap forward. The easiest way to do that is probably to use std::remove_if().
BTW, trying to read a file and checking in.eof() does not work reliable. In particular, when there are no more objects eof() may or may not be true and you don't check after reading whether the read was successful. Also note that eof() may never become true, e.g., if the file contains a format error and gets into fail state. You should read you data using something like
while (std::getline(in, userd[count])
&& std::getline(in, passd[count])
// ...
&& std::getline(in, mid)) {
++count;
}

Answer 2

Instead of clearing the element at position x, use erase on the vector (must be std::vector, and not C-array)