Data doesn't load into c++ vector correctly - c++

Question

I am trying to load a text file and import the contents into a vector of structs.
Here are my definitions
typedef struct
{
string pcName, pcUsername, pcPassword, pcMessage, pcAdvertisement; //I know that
//this is incorrect convention. It was originally a char*
}
ENTRY;
vector<ENTRY> entries;
fstream data;
Here is my display data function
void DisplayData()
{
std::cout << (int)(entries.size() / 5) <<" entries" << endl;
for(int i = 1; i <=(int)entries.size()/5; i++)
{
cout << endl << "Entry " << i << ":" << endl
<< "Name: " << entries[i].pcName << endl
<< "Username: " << entries[i].pcUsername << endl
<< "Password: " << entries[i].pcPassword << endl
<< "Message: " << entries[i].pcMessage << endl
<< "Advertisement: " << entries[i].pcAdvertisement << endl;
}
}
and here is my Load Data function
bool LoadData(const char* filepath)
{
std::string lineData ;
int linenumber = 1 ;
data.open(filepath, ios::in);
ENTRY entry_temp;
if(!data.is_open())
{
cerr << "Error loading file" << endl;
return false;
}
while(getline(data, lineData))
{
if(linenumber==1) {entry_temp.pcName = lineData;}
else if(linenumber==2) {entry_temp.pcUsername = lineData;}
else if(linenumber==3) {entry_temp.pcPassword = lineData;}
else if(linenumber==4) {entry_temp.pcMessage = lineData;}
else if(linenumber==5) {entry_temp.pcAdvertisement = lineData;}
entries.push_back(entry_temp);
if(linenumber == 5)
{
linenumber = 0;
}
linenumber++;
}
data.close();
puts("Database Loaded");
return true;
}
Here is the text file I am loading:
Name1
Username1
Password1
Message1
Ad1
And here is the result of the display data function after calling load data:
1 entries
Entry 1:
Name: Name1
Username Username1
Password:
Message:
Advertisement:
As you can see, the first two load but the last three don't. When I did this with an array instead of a vector, it worked fine so I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Thanks.

Answer 1

I suggest that you read each line directly into the data field where it goes:
getline(data, entry_temp.pcName);
getline(data, entry_temp.pcUsername);
getline(data, entry_temp.pcPassword);
getline(data, entry_temp.pcMessage);
getline(data, entry_temp.pcAdvertisement);
entries.push_back(entry_temp);
This makes your intent much clearer than your current while loop. It also creates a single entry for all 4 input lines rather than one for each input line (with the other three blank). Now you can read several "entries" by using a while loop that checks if you have reached the end of the file.
Doing this will also make printing out the data much easier since the vector will have exactly the number of entries rather than five times as many as you expect (which also eats up a lot more memory than you need to).

Answer 2

Your DisplayData function is a little weird, and so is your LoadData.
Your LoadData pushes back a new copy of the current ENTRIES entry with every line. Your DisplayData starts at 1 (which is not the beginning of any vector or array), and iterates only up to the 1/5th entry of the entire vector.
This needs a heavy rework.
First, the size() member of any standard container returns the number of elements that it contains, and will not take the number of fields in a contained struct into account.
For future reference, you'll want to post your question in a complete, standalone example that we can immediately compile to help. (see http://sscce.org/)
Try this modified data, which runs correctly, and see if you can tell what is being done differently:
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <vector>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
typedef struct
{
string pcName, pcUsername, pcPassword, pcMessage, pcAdvertisement;
}
ENTRY;
vector<ENTRY> entries;
fstream data;
bool LoadData(const char* filepath)
{
std::string lineData ;
int linenumber = 1 ;
data.open(filepath, ios::in);
ENTRY entry_temp;
if(!data.is_open())
{
cerr << "Error loading file" << endl;
return false;
}
while(getline(data, lineData))
{
if(linenumber==1) {entry_temp.pcName = lineData;}
else if(linenumber==2) {entry_temp.pcUsername = lineData;}
else if(linenumber==3) {entry_temp.pcPassword = lineData;}
else if(linenumber==4) {entry_temp.pcMessage = lineData;}
else if(linenumber==5) {entry_temp.pcAdvertisement = lineData;}
if(linenumber == 5)
{
entries.push_back(entry_temp);
linenumber = 0;
}
linenumber++;
}
data.close();
puts("Database Loaded");
return true;
}
void DisplayData()
{
std::cout << entries.size() <<" entries" << endl;
for(int i = 0; i < entries.size(); i++)
{
cout << endl << "Entry " << i << ":" << endl
<< "Name: " << entries[i].pcName << endl
<< "Username: " << entries[i].pcUsername << endl
<< "Password: " << entries[i].pcPassword << endl
<< "Message: " << entries[i].pcMessage << endl
<< "Advertisement: " << entries[i].pcAdvertisement << endl;
}
}
int main()
{
LoadData("/tmp/testdata");
DisplayData();
return (0);
}

Answer 3

While I think #code-guru has the right idea, I'd take the same idea just a little further, and make your code work a little more closely with the standard library. I'd do that by reading a data item with a stream extractor, and displaying it with stream inserter. So, the extractor would look something like this:
std::istream &operator>>(std::istream &is, ENTRY &e) {
getline(is, e.pcName);
getline(is, e.pcUsername);
getline(is, e.pcPassword);
getline(is, e.pcMessage);
getline(is, e.pcAdvertisement);
return is;
}
..and the inserter would look something like this:
std::ostream &operator<<(std::ostream &os, ENTRY const &e) {
os << e.pcName << "\n";
os << e.pcUsername << "\n";
os << e.pcPassword << "\n";
os << e.pcMessage << "\n";
os << e.pcAdvertisement << "\n";
return os;
}
With those in place, loading and displaying the data becomes fairly straightforward.
Load the data:
std::ifstream in("yourfile.txt");
std::vector<ENTRY> data((std::istream_iterator<ENTRY>(in)),
std::istream_iterator<ENTRY>());
Display the data:
for (auto const & e: data)
std::cout << e << "\n";
For the moment, I haven't tried to duplicate the format you were using to display the data -- presumably the modifications for that should be fairly obvious.