C++ fstream function that reads a line without extracting? - c++

In C++, is there a function in the fstream library (or any library) that allows me to read a line to a delimiter of '\n' without extracting?
I know the peek() function allows the program to 'peek' at the next character its reading in without extracting but I need a peek() like function that does that but for a whole line.

You can do this with a combination of getline, tellg and seekg.
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
#include <ios>
int main () {
std::fstream fs(__FILE__);
std::string line;
// Get current position
int len = fs.tellg();
// Read line
getline(fs, line);
// Print first line in file
std::cout << "First line: " << line << std::endl;
// Return to position before "Read line".
fs.seekg(len ,std::ios_base::beg);
// Print whole file
while (getline(fs ,line)) std::cout << line << std::endl;
}

Related

Finding certain characters in a line of string

I want to be able to a string that contains certain characters in a file that contains one string per line.
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
int main(){
string line;
ifstream infile;
infile.open("words.txt");
while(getline(infile, line,' ')){
if(line.find('z')){
cout << line;
}
}
}
That's my attempt at finding all the string that contains the character z.
The text file contains random strings such as
fhwaofhz
cbnooeht
rhowhrj
perwqreh
dsladsap
zpuaszu
so with my implementation, it should only print out the strings with the character z in it. However, it seems to be reprinting out all the contents from the text file again.
Problem:
In your file the strings aren't separated by a space (' ') which is the end delimiter, they are separated by a end of line ('\n'), that is a different character. As a consequence, in the first getline everything goes to line. line contains all the text in the file, including z's, so all the content is printed. Finally, the code exits the while block after running once because getline reaches the end of the file and fails.
If you run this code
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
int main(){
std::string line;
std::ifstream infile;
infile.open("words.txt");
while(getline(infile, line,' ')){
std::cout << "Hi";
if(line.find('z')){
std::cout << line;
}
}
}
"Hi" will be only printed once. That is because the while block is only executed once.
Additionaly, see that line.find('z') won't return 0 if not match is found, it will return npos. See it running this code (As it says here):
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
int main(){
std::string line;
std::ifstream infile;
infile.open("words.txt");
while(getline(infile,line)){
std::cout << line.find('z');
if(line.find('z')){
std::cout << line << "\n";
}
}
}
Solution:
Use getline(infile,line) that is more suitable for this case and replace if(line.find('z')) with if(line.find('z') != line.npos).
while(getline(infile,line)){
if(line.find('z') != line.npos){
std::cout << line << "\n";
}
}
If you need to put more than one string per line you can use the operator >> of ifstream.
Additional information:
Note that the code you posted won't compile because string, cout and ifstream are in the namespace std. Probably it was a part of a longer file where you were using using namespace std;. If that is the case, consider that it is a bad practice (More info here).
Full code:
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
int main(){
std::string line;
std::ifstream infile;
infile.open("words.txt");
while(getline(infile,line)){
if(line.find('z') != line.npos){
std::cout << line << "\n";
}
}
}
getline extracts characters from the source and stores them into the variable line until the delimitation character is found. Your delimiter character is a space (" "), which isn't present in the file, so line will contain the whole file.
Try getline(infile, line, '\n') or simply getline(infile, line) instead.
The method find returns the index of the found character, where 0 is a perfectly valid index. If the character is not found, it returns npos. This is a special value whcih indicates "not found", and it's nonzero to allow 0 to refer to a valid index. So the correct check is:
if (line.find('z') != string::npos)
{
// found
}

C++ line justification with I/O

I am creating a program that justifies a paragraph to ensure that each line has a length of 75 char. I have created functions that will insert spaces and create these desired lengths as needed, but I am having problems reading a text file and trying to break it down line by line. Each line provided is less than the 75 char limit, and my functions do properly work when it is given only a line. But I do not know how to read line by line, manipulate it, and then write to my new .txt file. When I output this to the new text file, I am greeted by a justified line of text, not text that is in a paragraph block!
I have tried to create an if else loop that would only run when the string.length() is less than 75 char, and would create a new line when false, but I do not know how to create this new line in the program
string myString;
string line("\n");
while (getline(inFile, myString))
{
cout << myString << endl;
puncLoop(myString);
spaceLoop(myString);
}
}
In Order to output the file with new line you can use "\n".
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <fstream>
int main() {
//in file object
std::ifstream inFile("example.txt");
//out file object
std::ofstream outFile ("example2.txt", std::ios_base::out | std::ios_base::trunc );
//Checking if file exist
if( inFile && outFile )
{
//temp valarable to store each line
std::string mystring;
//Loop through each line
while (getline(inFile, mystring))
{
//... Call Your Business Logic functions here, ( make use of pass by refernce or return to get back the string )
outFile << mystring.c_str() << "\n";
}
//closing file after completing
inFile.close();
outFile.close();
}
else
{
std::cout << "Could not open File to read or write"<<std::endl;
}
return 0;
}

Simple File-I/O Program C++

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <process.h>
using namespace std;
int main(){
system("cls");
char mline[75];
int lc=0;
ofstream fout("out.txt",ios::out);
ifstream fin("data.txt",ios::in);
if(!fin){
cerr<<"Failed to open file !";
exit(1);
}
while(1){
fin.getline(mline,75,'.');
if(fin.eof()){break;}
lc++;
fout<<lc<<". "<<mline<<"\n";
}
fin.close();
fout.close();
cout<<"Output "<<lc<<" records"<<endl;
return 0;
}
The above code is supposed to read from the file "data.txt" the following text
"The default behaviour of ifstream type stream (upon opening files ) allows users
to read contents from the file. if the file mode is ios::in only then reading is
performed on a text file and if the file mode also includes ios::binary along with
ios::in then, reading is performed in binary mode. No transformation of characters
takes place in binary mode whereas specific transformations take place in text mode."
and create a file out.txt , in which the same text is stored using line numbers ( A line can have 75 characters or ends at '.' - whichever occurs earlier ).
Whenever I run the program, it just gets stuck at the console - which doesnt respond upon pressing any keys whatsoever.
Can someone tell me what's going on in here ?
If any one of the attempted reads in the file is longer than 74 characters, getline will set the failbit for fin, and you will never reach the end of the file. Change your code to the following:
for (; fin; ++lc) {
fin.getline(mline,75,'.');
if (!fin.eof() && !fin.bad())
fin.clear();
fout<<lc<<". "<<mline<<"\n";
}
This will break your loop if you reach the end of the file or if something catastrophic happens to the stream. You'll also need to think about handling the extra read that is performed if the file ends with a period.
Consider switching to std::string.
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
int main()
{
int lc = 0;
std::ofstream fout("out.txt");
std::ifstream fin("data.txt");
for (std::string line; getline(fin, line, '.'); )
fout << ++lc << ". " << line << "\n";
std::cout << "Output " << lc << " records\n";
}

Problems using seekg in C++

I'm reading a file through a function like this:
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
...
void readfile(string name){
string line;
int p = 0;
ifstream f(name.c_str());
while(getline(f,line)){
p++;
}
f.seekg(0);
cout << p << endl;
getline(f,line);
cout << line << endl;
}
Mi file has 3 lines:
first
second
third
I expected the output:
3
first
Instead I get:
3
(nothing)
why is my seekg not working?
Because seekg() fails if the stream has reached the end of the file (eofbit is set), which occurs due to your getline looping. As sftrabbit implies, calling clear() will reset that bit and should allow you to seek properly. (Or you could just use C++11, in which seekg will clear eofbit itself.)
Use iterators for read from the file
std::fstream file( "myfile.txt", std::ios::out );
std::string data = std::string(
std::istreambuf_iterator<char>( file ),
std::istreambuf_iterator<char>() );

How do I read a text file from the second line using fstream?

How can I make my std::fstream object start reading a text file from the second line?
Use getline() to read the first line, then begin reading the rest of the stream.
ifstream stream("filename.txt");
string dummyLine;
getline(stream, dummyLine);
// Begin reading your stream here
while (stream)
...
(Changed to std::getline (thanks dalle.myopenid.com))
You could use the ignore feature of the stream:
ifstream stream("filename.txt");
// Get and drop a line
stream.ignore ( std::numeric_limits<std::streamsize>::max(), '\n' );
// Get and store a line for processing.
// std::getline() has a third parameter the defaults to '\n' as the line
// delimiter.
std::string line;
std::getline(stream,line);
std::string word;
stream >> word; // Reads one space separated word from the stream.
A common mistake for reading a file:
while( someStream.good() ) // !someStream.eof()
{
getline( someStream, line );
cout << line << endl;
}
This fails because: When reading the last line it does not read the EOF marker. So the stream is still good, but there is no more data left in the stream to read. So the loop is re-entered. std::getline() then attempts to read another line from someStream and fails, but still write a line to std::cout.
Simple solution:
while( someStream ) // Same as someStream.good()
{
getline( someStream, line );
if (someStream) // streams when used in a boolean context are converted to a type that is usable in that context. If the stream is in a good state the object returned can be used as true
{
// Only write to cout if the getline did not fail.
cout << line << endl;
}
}
Correct Solution:
while(getline( someStream, line ))
{
// Loop only entered if reading a line from somestream is OK.
// Note: getline() returns a stream reference. This is automatically cast
// to boolean for the test. streams have a cast to bool operator that checks
// good()
cout << line << endl;
}
The more efficient way is ignoring strings with std::istream::ignore
for (int currLineNumber = 0; currLineNumber < startLineNumber; ++currLineNumber){
if (addressesFile.ignore(numeric_limits<streamsize>::max(), addressesFile.widen('\n'))){
//just skipping the line
} else
return HandleReadingLineError(addressesFile, currLineNumber);
}
HandleReadingLineError is not standart but hand-made, of course.
The first parameter is maximum number of characters to extract. If this is exactly numeric_limits::max(), there is no limit:
Link at cplusplus.com: std::istream::ignore
If you are going to skip a lot of lines you definitely should use it instead of getline: when i needed to skip 100000 lines in my file it took about a second in opposite to 22 seconds with getline.
Call getline() once to throw away the first line
There are other methods, but the problem is this, you don't know how long the first line will be do you? So you can't skip it till you know where that first '\n' is. If however you did know how long the first line was going to be, you could simply seek past it, then begin reading, this would be faster.
So to do it the first way would look something like:
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
// Open your file
ifstream someStream( "textFile.txt" );
// Set up a place to store our data read from the file
string line;
// Read and throw away the first line simply by doing
// nothing with it and reading again
getline( someStream, line );
// Now begin your useful code
while( !someStream.eof() ) {
// This will just over write the first line read
getline( someStream, line );
cout << line << endl;
}
return 0;
}
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
string textString;
string anotherString;
ifstream textFile;
textFile.open("TextFile.txt");
if (textFile.is_open()) {
while (getline(textFile, textString)){
anotherString = anotherString + textString;
}
}
std::cout << anotherString;
textFile.close();
return 0;
}
this code can read file from your specified line from file but you have to make file in file explorer before hand my file name is "temp" code is given below
https://i.stack.imgur.com/OTrsj.png
hope this can help
You can use ignore function as follow:
fstream dataFile("file.txt");
dataFile.ignore(1, '\n'); // ignore one line
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
char buffer[256];
ifstream myfile ("test.txt");
// first line
myfile.getline (buffer,100);
// the rest
while (! myfile.eof() )
{
myfile.getline (buffer,100);
cout << buffer << endl;
}
return 0;
}