Need to write specific lines of a text into a new text - c++

Question

I have numerical text data lines ranging between 1mb - 150 mb in size, i need to write lines of numbers related to heights, for example: heights=4 , new text must include lines: 1,5,9,13,17,21.... consequentially.
i have been trying to find a way to do this for a while now, tried using a list instead of vector which ended up with compilation errors.
I have cleaned up the code as advised. It now writes all lines sample2 text, all done here. Thank you all
I am open to method change as long as it delivers what i need, Thank you for you time and help.
following is what i have so far:
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
#include <list>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;
int h,n,m;
int c=1;
int main () {
cout<< "Enter Number Of Heights: ";
cin>>h;
ifstream myfile_in ("C:\\sample.txt");
ofstream myfile_out ("C:\\sample2.txt");
string line;
std::string str;
vector <string> v;
if (myfile_in.is_open()) {
myfile_in >> noskipws;
int i=0;
int j=0;
while (std::getline(myfile_in, line)) {
v.push_back( line );
++n;
if (n-1==i) {
myfile_out<<v[i]<<endl;
i=i+h;
++j;
}
}
cout<<"Number of lines in text file: "<<n<<endl;
}
else cout << "Unable to open file(s) ";
cout<< "Reaching here, Writing one line"<<endl;
system("PAUSE");
return 0;
}

Answer 1

You need to use seekg to set the position at the beginning of the file, once you have read it (you have read it once, to count the lines (which I don't think you actually need, as this size is never used, at least in this piece of code)
And what is the point if the inner while? On each loop, you have
int i=1;
myfile_out<<v[i]; //Not writing to text
i=i+h;
So on each loop, i gets 1, so you output the element with index 1 all the time. Which is not the first element, as indices start from 0. So, once you put seekg or remove the first while, your program will start to crash.
So, make i start from 0. And get it out of the two while loops, right at the beginning of the if-statement.
Ah, the second while is also unnecessary. Leave just the first one.
EDIT:
Add
myfile_in.clear();
before seekg to clear the flags.
Also, your algorithm is wrong. You'll get seg fault, if h > 1, because you'll get out of range (of the vector). I'd advise to do it like this: read the file in the while, that counts the lines. And store each line in the vector. This way you'll be able to remove the second reading, seekg, clear, etc. Also, as you already store the content of the file into a vector, you'll NOT lose anything. Then just use for loop with step h.
Again edit, regarding your edit: no, it has nothing to do with any flags. The if, where you compare i==j is outside the while. Add it inside. Also, increment j outside the if. Or just remove j and use n-1 instead. Like
if ( n-1 == i )

Answer 2

Several things.
First you read the file completely, just to count the number of lines,
then you read it a second time to process it, building up an in memory
image in v. Why not just read it in the first time, and do everything
else on the in memory image? (v.size() will then give you the number
of lines, so you don't have to count them.)
And you never actually use the count anyway.
Second, once you've reached the end of file the first time, the
failbit is set; all further operations are no-ops, until it is reset.
If you have to read the file twice (say because you do away with v
completely), then you have to do myfile_in.clear() after the first
loop, but before seeking to the beginning.
You only test for is_open after having read the file once. This test
should be immediately after the open.
You also set noskipws, although you don't do any formatted input
which would be affected by it.
The final while is highly suspect. Because you haven't done the
clear, you probably never enter the loop, but if you did, you'd very
quickly start accessing out of bounds: after reading n lines, the size
of v will be n, but you read it with index i, which will be n * h.
Finally, you should explicitly close the output file and check for
errors after the close, just in case.
It's not clear to me what you're trying to do. If all you want to do is
insert h empty lines between each existing line, something like:
std::string separ( h + 1, '\n' );
std::string line;
while ( std::getline( myfile_in, line ) ) {
myfile_out << line << separ;
}
should do the trick. No need to store the complete input in memory.
(For that matter, you don't even have to write a program for this.
Something as simple a sed 's:$:\n\n\n\n:' < infile > outfile would do
the trick.)
EDIT:
Reading other responses, I gather that I may have misunderstood the
problem, and that he only wants to output every h-th line. If this is
the case:
std::string line;
while ( std::getline( myfile_in, line ) ) {
myfile_out << line << '\n';
for ( int count = h - 1; h > 0; -- h ) {
std::getline( myfile_in, line );
// or myfile_in.ignore( INT_MAX, '\n' );
}
}
But again, other tools seem more appropriate. (I'd follow thiton's
suggestion and use AWK.) Why write a program in a language you don't
know well when tools are already available to do the job.

Answer 3

If there is no absolutely compelling reason to do this in C++, you are using the wrong programming language for this. In awk, your whole program is:
{ if ( FNR % 4 == 1 ) print; }
Or, giving the whole command line e.g. in sh to filter lines 1,5,9,13,...:
awk '{ if ( FNR % 4 == 1 ) print; }' a.txt > b.txt