I have a class X which has a writeBinary(ostream) method which can throw a custom exception
if something happens to the stream.
What is the correct way to write to fstream and error check?
Here is my version: I would like to know if I am missing something or I need to catch
errors.
ofstream ofs("X.binary.tmp");
if (!ofs) {
cerr << "Could not open file for writing";
throw runtime_error("Could not open file for writing");
}
try {
x.writeBinary(ofs);
} catch(CustomException& e) {
// remove the temporary file
int x = unlink("X.binary.tmp");
if (x) {
cerr << "Failed to remove file";
}
throw;
}
if (!ofs) { // is this check necessary?
int x = unlink("X.binary.tmp"):
if (x) {
cerr << "Failed to remove file";
}
throw std::runtime_error("Stream error");
}
rename("X.binary.tmp", "X.binary");
Can this hodgepodge mess of exceptions be simplified?
One way to make things a lot less messy is to create a resource handling object - so a "tempfile" object, which opens a new file by the name given to the constructor, and in the destructor calls unlink if the filename isn't blank. Then have it have a rename function that renames the file and sets the name to blank, for example. And of course a function that gives you the ofstream from the object.
I'm sure it's as much code, but it'll look a lot cleaner, and it will make life much easier.
Writing code that copes with lots of potential errors is not easy, as you may have noticed...
Related
Hello and sorry if the answer is clear to those out there. I am still fairly new to programming and ask for some guidance.
This function should write just one of the three string parameters it takes in to the txt file I have already generated. When I run the program the function seems to work fine and the cout statement shows the info is in the string and does get passes successfully. The issue is after running the program I go to check the txt file and find it is still blank.
I am using C++17 on visual studio professional 2015.
void AddNewMagicItem(const std::string & ItemKey,
const std::string & ItemDescription,
const std::string &filename)
{
const char* ItemKeyName = ItemKey.c_str();
const char* ItemDescriptionBody = ItemDescription.c_str();
const char* FileToAddItemTo = filename.c_str();
std::ofstream AddingItem(FileToAddItemTo);
std::ifstream FileCheck(FileToAddItemTo);
AddingItem.open(FileToAddItemTo, std::ios::out | std::ios::app);
if (_access(FileToAddItemTo, 0) == 0)
{
if (FileCheck.is_open())
{
AddingItem << ItemKey;
std::cout << ItemKey << std::endl;
}
}
AddingItem.close(); // not sure these are necessary
FileCheck.close(); //not sure these are necessary
}
This should print out a message onto a .txt file when you pass a string into the ItemKey parameter.
Thank you very much for your help and again please forgive me as I am also new to stackoverflow and might have made some mistakes in formatting this question or not being clear enough.
ADD ON: Thank you everyone who has answered this question and for all your help. I appreciate the help and would like to personally thank you all for your help, comments, and input on this topic. May your code compile every time and may your code reviews always be commented.
As mentioned by previous commenters/answerers, your code can be simplified by letting the destructor of the ofstream object close the file for you, and by refraining from using the c_str() conversion function.
This code seems to do what you wanted, on GCC v8 at least:
#include <string>
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
void AddNewMagicItem(const std::string& ItemKey,
const std::string& ItemDescription,
const std::string& fileName)
{
std::ofstream AddingItem{fileName, std::ios::app};
if (AddingItem) { // if file successfully opened
AddingItem << ItemKey;
std::cout << ItemKey << std::endl;
}
else {
std::cerr << "Could not open file " << fileName << std::endl;
}
// implicit close of AddingItem file handle here
}
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
std::string outputFileName{"foobar.txt"};
std::string desc{"Description"};
// use implicit conversion of "key*" C strings to std::string objects:
AddNewMagicItem("key1", desc, outputFileName);
AddNewMagicItem("key2", desc, outputFileName);
AddNewMagicItem("key3", desc, outputFileName);
return 0;
}
Main Problem
std::ofstream AddingItem(FileToAddItemTo);
opened the file. Opening it again with
AddingItem.open(FileToAddItemTo, std::ios::out | std::ios::app);
caused the stream to fail.
Solution
Move the open modes into the constructor (std::ofstream AddingItem(FileToAddItemTo, std::ios::app);) and remove the manual open.
Note that only the app open mode is needed. ofstream implies the out mode is already set.
Note: If the user does not have access to the file, the file cannot be opened. There is no need to test for this separately. I find testing for an open file followed by a call to perror or a similar target-specific call to provide details on the cause of the failure to be a useful feature.
Note that there are several different states the stream could be in and is_open is sort of off to the side. You want to check all of them to make sure an IO transaction succeeded. In this case the file is open, so if is_open is all you check, you miss the failbit. A common related bug when reading is only testing for EOF and winding up in a loop of failed reads that will never reach the end of the file (or reading past the end of the file by checking too soon).
AddingItem << ItemKey;
becomes
if (!(AddingItem << ItemKey))
{
//handle failure
}
Sometimes you will need better granularity to determine exactly what happened in order to properly handle the error. Check the state bits and possibly perror and target-specific
diagnostics as above.
Side Problem
Opening a file for simultaneous read and write with multiple fstreams is not recommended. The different streams will provide different buffered views of the same file resulting in instability.
Attempting to read and write the same file through a single ostream can be done, but it is exceptionally difficult to get right. The standard rule of thumb is read the file into memory and close the file, edit the memory, and the open the file, write the memory, close the file. Keep the in-memory copy of the file if possible so that you do not have to reread the file.
If you need to be certain a file was written correctly, write the file and then read it back, parse it, and verify that the information is correct. While verifying, do not allow the file to be written again. Don't try to multithread this.
Details
Here's a little example to show what went wrong and where.
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
int main()
{
std::ofstream AddingItem("test");
if (AddingItem.is_open()) // test file is open
{
std::cout << "open";
}
if (AddingItem) // test stream is writable
{
std::cout << " and writable\n";
}
else
{
std::cout << " and NOT writable\n";
}
AddingItem.open("test", std::ios::app);
if (AddingItem.is_open())
{
std::cout << "open";
}
if (AddingItem)
{
std::cout << " and writable\n";
}
else
{
std::cout << " and NOT writable\n";
}
}
Assuming the working directory is valid and the user has permissions to write to test, we will see that the program output is
open and writable
open and NOT writable
This shows that
std::ofstream AddingItem("test");
opened the file and that
AddingItem.open("test", std::ios::app);
left the file open, but put the stream in a non-writable error state to force you to deal with the potential logic error of trying to have two files open in the same stream at the same time. Basically it's saying, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." without Undefined Behaviour or the full Hal 9000 bloodbath.
Unfortunately to get this message, you have to look at the correct error bits. In this case I looked at all of them with if (AddingItem).
As a complement of the already given question comments:
If you want to write data into a file, I do not understand why you have used a std::ifstream. Only std::ofstream is needed.
You can write data into a file this way:
const std::string file_path("../tmp_test/file_test.txt"); // path to the file
std::string content_to_write("Something\n"); // content to be written in the file
std::ofstream file_s(file_path, std::ios::app); // construct and open the ostream in appending mode
if(file_s) // if the stream is successfully open
{
file_s << content_to_write; // write data
file_s.close(); // close the file (or you can also let the file_s destructor do it for you at the end of the block)
}
else
std::cout << "Fail to open: " << file_path << std::endl; // write an error message
As you said being quite new to programming, I have explicitly commented each line to make it more understandable.
I hope it helps.
EDIT:
For more explanation, you tried to open the file 3 times (twice in writing mode and once in reading mode). This is the cause of your problems. You only need to open the file once in writing mode.
Morever, checking that the input stream is open will not tell you if the output stream is open too. Keep in mind that you open a file stream. If you want to check if it is properly open, you have to check it over the related object, not over another one.
My program lets the user specify where to write a file. If they specify "C:\output.txt" the file operations seem to succeed (no errors) however the file doesn't get created. I know this is due to Windows requiring elevated permission and when running as administrator it does write to C:\. My question is how can I detect that the file didn't actually open?
This block "succeeds" without error even though the file doesn't actually get created:
ofstream ofs;
try {
ofs.open(outputFile);
if (!ofs.is_open()){
throw "The file could not be opened";
}
ofs << "it worked";
ofs.close();
} catch (const char* ex){
cout << ex;
return 1;
}
If open() fails to create/open a file, the stream's is_open() method will return false, and the stream's failbit state flag will be set, so the fail() method and operator! will return true:
ofs.open(outputFile);
if (!ofs.is_open())
// or: if (ofs.fail())
// or: if (!ofs)
{
cout << "The file could not be opened";
return 1;
}
If no failure is reported, then no failure occurred. The file was created somewhere, but that might not be where you are expecting.
If you open a file using a relative path, then it is relative to the calling process's current working directory, which may be different than you are expecting. So always use absolute paths.
If you try to create a file and you don't have access to the folder where you are creating the file, the file creation might get transparently redirected to a VirtualStore folder within the user's profile instead.
Try using SysInternals Process Monitor to see where exactly the file is being created (or even, where open() is attempting to create the file, if no access is allowed and redirection doesn't happen).
On a side note, what you showed is a misuse of exception handling. You don't really need an exception at all, as shown above. However, if you do want to throw an exception on failure, consider using the ofstream::exceptions() method instead:
ofstream ofs;
ofs.exceptions(ofstream::failbit);
try {
ofs.open(outputFile);
ofs << "it worked";
}
catch (std::ios_base::failure &) {
cout << "The file could not be opened, or written to";
return 1;
}
ofs.close();
I've been having a nightmare this evening trying to get some very simple I/O functionality going. As embarrassing as it is, I've had some great help from people on here!
My current issue is that I'm attempting to use ifstream.open() and it simply is not opening the file. This is confirmed by getline(ifstream,line); returning false on it's first call.
Here is a copy paste of the current code:
std::string FSXController::readLine(int offset, FileLookupFlag flag)
{
// Storage Buffer
string line;
streampos sPos(offset);
try
{
// Init stream
if (!m_ifs.is_open())
m_ifs.open("C:\\Users\\guyth\\Documents\\test.txt", fstream::in);
}
catch (int errorCode)
{
showException(errorCode);
return "";
}
// Set stream to read input line
m_ifs.seekg(sPos);
if (!getline(m_ifs, line))
return "";
// Close stream if no multiple selection required
if (flag == FileLookupFlag::single)
m_ifs.close();
return line;
}
This code is in 'bug fix mode' and so therefore is pretty messy, don't worry too much about that, cleanup will happen when this method is finally working.
I have tried:
Absolute file path
Saving path into string and then calling the .c_str() method.
Running VS 2015 in Administrator mode
Ensuring file has read/wright access
Ensuring no duplicate file extensions
Yes the file definitely has content! :D
I'm kinda out of ideas now and am really not sure why this file is refusing to load.
The condition: if (!getline(m_ifs, line)) Repeatedly returns true... :(
EDIT: I've just tried checking m_ifs.fail() immediately after the open and it returns true, so we know the fail flag was triggered :/
Thanks
Guy
Enable exceptions before opening the stream:
m_ifs.exceptions ( std::ifstream::failbit | std::ifstream::badbit );
Otherwise m_ifs.open won't throw.
And you have to catch std::ifstream::failure:
try {
m_ifs.open("C:\\Users\\guyth\\Documents\\test.txt", fstream::in);
}
catch (std::ifstream::failure e) {
std::cerr << "Exception opening file: " << std::strerror(errno) << "\n";
}
See ios::exceptions for more details.
I am trying out try, catch, throw statements in C++ for file handling, and I have written a dummy code to catch all errors. My question is in order to check if I have got these right, I need an error to occur. Now I can easily check infile.fail() by simply not creating a file of the required name in the directory. But how will I be able to check the same for outfile.fail() (outfile is ofstream where as infile is ifstream). In which case, will the value for outfile.fail() be true?
sample code [from comments on unapersson's answer, simplified to make issue clearer -zack]:
#include <fstream>
using std::ofstream;
int main()
{
ofstream outfile;
outfile.open("test.txt");
if (outfile.fail())
// do something......
else
// do something else.....
return 0;
}
The open(2) man page on Linux has about 30 conditions. Some intresting ones are:
If the file exists and you don't have permission to write it.
If the file doesn't exist, and you don't have permission (on the diretory) to create it.
If you don't have search permission on some parent directory.
If you pass in a bogus char* for the filename.
If, while opening a device file, you press CTRL-C.
If the kernel encountered too many symbolic links while resolving the name.
If you try to open a directory for writing.
If the pathname is too long.
If your process has too many files open already.
If the system has too many files open already.
If the pathname refers to a device file, and there is no such device in the system.
If the kernel has run out of memory.
If the filesystem is full.
If a component of the pathname is not a directory.
If the file is on a read-only filesystem.
If the file is an executable file which is currently being executed.
By default, and by design, C++ streams never throw exceptions on error. You should not try to write code that assumes they do, even though it is possible to get them to. Instead, in your application logic check every I/O operation for an error and deal with it, possibly throwing your own exception if that error cannot be dealt with at the specific place it occurs in your code.
The canonical way of testing streams and stream operations is not to test specific stream flags, unless you have to. Instead:
ifstream ifs( "foo.txt" );
if ( ifs ) {
// ifs is good
}
else {
// ifs is bad - deal with it
}
similarly for read operations:
int x;
while( cin >> x ) {
// do something with x
}
// at this point test the stream (if you must)
if ( cin.eof() ) {
// cool - what we expected
}
else {
// bad
}
To get ofstream::open to fail, you need to arrange for it to be impossible to create the named file. The easiest way to do this is to create a directory of the exact same name before running the program. Here's a nearly-complete demo program; arranging to reliably remove the test directory if and only if you created it, I leave as an exercise.
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <cstring>
#include <cerrno>
using std::ofstream;
using std::strerror;
using std::cerr;
int main()
{
ofstream outfile;
// set up conditions so outfile.open will fail:
if (mkdir("test.txt", 0700)) {
cerr << "mkdir failed: " << strerror(errno) << '\n';
return 2;
}
outfile.open("test.txt");
if (outfile.fail()) {
cerr << "open failure as expected: " << strerror(errno) << '\n';
return 0;
} else {
cerr << "open success, not as expected\n";
return 1;
}
}
There is no good way to ensure that writing to an fstream fails. I would probably create a mock ostream that failed writes, if I needed to test that.
What's the correct way to check for a general error when sending data to an fstream?
UPDATE: My main concern regards some things I've been hearing about a delay between output and any data being physically written to the hard disk. My assumption was that the command "save_file_obj << save_str" would only send data to some kind of buffer and that the following check "if (save_file_obj.bad())" would not be any use in determining if there was an OS or hardware problem. I just wanted to know what was the definitive "catch all" way to send a string to a file and check to make certain that it was written to the disk, before carrying out any following actions such as closing the program.
I have the following code...
int Saver::output()
{
save_file_handle.open(file_name.c_str());
if (save_file_handle.is_open())
{
save_file_handle << save_str.c_str();
if (save_file_handle.bad())
{
x_message("Error - failed to save file");
return 0;
}
save_file_handle.close();
if (save_file_handle.bad())
{
x_message("Error - failed to save file");
return 0;
}
return 1;
}
else
{
x_message("Error - couldn't open save file");
return 0;
}
}
A few points. Firstly:
save_file_handle
is a poor name for an instance of a C++ fstream. fstreams are not file handles and all this can do is confuse the reader.
Secondly, as Michael pints out, there is no need to convert a C++ string to a C-string. The only time you should really find yourself doing this is when interfacing with C-style APIS, and when using a few poorly designed C++ APIs, such as (unfortunately) fstream::open().
Thirdly, the canonical way to test if a stream operation worked is to test the operation itself. Streams have a conversion to void * which means you can write stuff like this:
if ( save_file_handle << save_str ) {
// operation worked
}
else {
// failed for some reason
}
Your code should always testv stream operations, whether for input or output.
Everything except for the check after the close seems reasonable. That said, I would restructure things slightly differently and throw an exception or use a bool, but that is simply a matter of preference:
bool Saver::output()
{
std::fstream out(_filename.c_str(),std::ios::out);
if ( ! out.is_open() ){
LOG4CXX_ERROR(_logger,"Could not open \""<<filename<<"\"");
return false;
}
out << _savestr << std::endl;
if ( out.bad() ){
LOG4CXX_ERROR(_logger,"Could not save to \""<<filename<<"\"");
out.close();
return false;
}
out.close();
return true;
}
I should also point out that you don't need to use save_str.c_str(), since C++ iostreams (including fstream, ofstream, etc.) are all capable of outputting std::string objects. Also, if you construct the file stream object in the scope of the function, it will automatically be closed when it goes out of scope.
Are you absolutely sure that save_file_handle doesn't already have a file associated (open) with it? If it does then calling its open() method will fail and raise its ios::failbit error flag -- and any exceptions if set to do so.
The close() method can't fail unless the file isn't open, in which case the method will raise the ios::failbit error flag. At any rate, the destructor should close the file, and do so automatically if the save_file_handle is a stack variable as in your code.
int Saver::output()
{
save_file_handle.open(file_name.c_str());
if (save_file_handle.fail())
{
x_message("Error - file failed to previously close");
return 0;
}
save_file_handle << save_str.c_str();
if (save_file_handle.bad())
{
x_message("Error - failed to save file");
return 0;
}
return 1;
}
Alternatively, you can separate the error checking from the file-saving logic if you use ios::exceptions().
int Saver::output()
{
ios_base::iostate old = save_file_handle.exceptions();
save_file_handle.exceptions(ios::failbit | ios::badbit);
try
{
save_file_handle.open(file_name.c_str());
save_file_handle << save_str.c_str();
}
catch (ofstream::failure e)
{
x_message("Error - couldn't save file");
save_file_handle.exceptions(old);
return 0;
}
save_file_handle.exceptions(old);
return 1;
}
You might prefer to move the call to save_file_handle.exceptions(ios::failbit | ios::badbit) to the constructor(s). Then you can get rid of the statements that reset the exceptions flag.