Problem with ifstream - c++

Look at this small code, it open a ifstream :
std::ifstream _fcs;
bool openFile(char* path)
{
istream::pos_type pos;
int tmp = 0;
_fcs.open(path, fstream::binary | fstream::in);
if(!_fcs.is_open())
return false;
tmp = 0;
pos = 0x404;
_fcs.seekg(0x404);
pos = _fcs.tellg(); /// return zero
_fcs >> tmp; ///
_fcs.read((char*)&tmp, 4);
return true;
}
i have two problems.
after seekg, tellg return zero and when I read data it reads from beginning of file.
operator >> seems doesn't work. always return zero!
////------------------------------------------------
thanks for your attentions. I found a crazy solution, but I get confused!
if I call seekg two times, it works, see this code:
bool openFile(char* path)
{
istream::pos_type pos;
int tmp;
bool fail;
_fcs.open(path, fstream::binary | fstream::in);
if(!_fcs.is_open())
return false;
_fcs.seekg(0x402);
_fcs.seekg(0x402); /// When it comments, the tellg returns 0. am i crazy!?
fail = _fcs.fail();
assert(!fail);
pos = _fcs.tellg(); /// return 0x402!!!
/// _fcs >> tmp;
_fcs.read((char*)&tmp, 4);
return true;
}
really, what's happened?
////------------------------------------------------
please help me...
thanks in advanced.

Check the failbit using _fcs.fail() after your seekg call to make sure you haven't specified an invalid file position.
To double check the size use
_fcs.seekg(0,ios::end);
int length = _fcs.tellg();
You also need to use .read() to get the len value, as your file is binary

In binary mode, >> is not supposed to work, you have to use ostream::write.
Does your file actually exists and have a size ? if note, you can't "move" to an arbitrary point in an empty file.

Related

How to detect if a file empty or not in c++? [duplicate]

Is there an easy way to check if a file is empty. Like if you are passing a file to a function and you realize it's empty, then you close it right away? Thanks.
Edit, I tried using the fseek method, but I get an error saying 'cannot convert ifstream to FILE *'.
My function's parameter is
myFunction(ifstream &inFile)
Perhaps something akin to:
bool is_empty(std::ifstream& pFile)
{
return pFile.peek() == std::ifstream::traits_type::eof();
}
Short and sweet.
With concerns to your error, the other answers use C-style file access, where you get a FILE* with specific functions.
Contrarily, you and I are working with C++ streams, and as such cannot use those functions. The above code works in a simple manner: peek() will peek at the stream and return, without removing, the next character. If it reaches the end of file, it returns eof(). Ergo, we just peek() at the stream and see if it's eof(), since an empty file has nothing to peek at.
Note, this also returns true if the file never opened in the first place, which should work in your case. If you don't want that:
std::ifstream file("filename");
if (!file)
{
// file is not open
}
if (is_empty(file))
{
// file is empty
}
// file is open and not empty
Ok, so this piece of code should work for you. I changed the names to match your parameter.
inFile.seekg(0, ios::end);
if (inFile.tellg() == 0) {
// ...do something with empty file...
}
Seek to the end of the file and check the position:
fseek(fileDescriptor, 0, SEEK_END);
if (ftell(fileDescriptor) == 0) {
// file is empty...
} else {
// file is not empty, go back to the beginning:
fseek(fileDescriptor, 0, SEEK_SET);
}
If you don't have the file open already, just use the fstat function and check the file size directly.
C++17 solution:
#include <filesystem>
const auto filepath = <path to file> (as a std::string or std::filesystem::path)
auto isEmpty = (std::filesystem::file_size(filepath) == 0);
Assumes you have the filepath location stored, I don't think you can extract a filepath from an std::ifstream object.
when the file is empty the tellg will give you value 0 if its empty so focus on that and it is the simplest way to find an empty file, if you just create the file it will give you -1.
outfile.seekg(0,ios::end);
if(file.tellg()<1){
//empty
}else{
file.clear(); // clear all flags(eof)
file.seekg(0,ios::beg);//reset to front
//not empty
}
If your use case offer the possibility to check for emptiness before opening the file,C++17 provides you is_empty
#include <filesystem>
if (!std::filesystem::is_empty("path.txt")) {
///Open and use the file
}
char ch;
FILE *f = fopen("file.txt", "r");
if(fscanf(f,"%c",&ch)==EOF)
{
printf("File is Empty");
}
fclose(f);
How about (not elegant way though )
int main( int argc, char* argv[] )
{
std::ifstream file;
file.open("example.txt");
bool isEmpty(true);
std::string line;
while( file >> line )
isEmpty = false;
std::cout << isEmpty << std::endl;
}
use this:
data.peek() != '\0'
I've been searching for an hour until finaly this helped!
pFile = fopen("file", "r");
fseek (pFile, 0, SEEK_END);
size=ftell (pFile);
if (size) {
fseek(pFile, 0, SEEK_SET);
do something...
}
fclose(pFile)
if (nfile.eof()) // Prompt data from the Priming read:
nfile >> CODE >> QTY >> PRICE;
else
{
/*used to check that the file is not empty*/
ofile << "empty file!!" << endl;
return 1;
}

Skip reading a line in a INI file if its length greater than n in C++

I want to skip reading a line in the INI file if has more than 1000 characters.This is the code i'm using:
#define MAX_LINE 1000
char buf[MAX_LINE];
CString strTemp;
str.Empty();
for(;;)
{
is.getline(buf,MAX_LINE);
strTemp=buf;
if(strTemp.IsEmpty()) break;
str+=strTemp;
if(str.Find("^")>-1)
{
str=str.Left( str.Find("^") );
do
{
is.get(buf,2);
} while(is.gcount()>0);
is.getline(buf,2);
}
else if(strTemp.GetLength()!=MAX_LINE-1) break;
}
//is.getline(buf,MAX_LINE);
return is;
...
The problem i'm facing is that if the characters exceed 1000 if seems to fall in a infinite loop(unable to read next line).How can i make the getline to skip that line and read the next line??
const std::size_t max_line = 1000; // not a macro, macros are disgusting
std::string line;
while (std::getline(is, line))
{
if (line.length() > max_line)
continue;
// else process the line ...
}
How abut checking the return value of getline and break if that fails?
..or if is is an istream, you could check for an eof() condition to break you out.
#define MAX_LINE 1000
char buf[MAX_LINE];
CString strTemp;
str.Empty();
while(is.eof() == false)
{
is.getline(buf,MAX_LINE);
strTemp=buf;
if(strTemp.IsEmpty()) break;
str+=strTemp;
if(str.Find("^")>-1)
{
str=str.Left( str.Find("^") );
do
{
is.get(buf,2);
} while((is.gcount()>0) && (is.eof() == false));
stillReading = is.getline(buf,2);
}
else if(strTemp.GetLength()!=MAX_LINE-1)
{
break;
}
}
return is;
For something completely different:
std::string strTemp;
str.Empty();
while(std::getline(is, strTemp)) {
if(strTemp.empty()) break;
str+=strTemp.c_str(); //don't need .c_str() if str is also a std::string
int pos = str.Find("^"); //extracted this for speed
if(pos>-1){
str=str.Left(pos);
//Did not translate this part since it was buggy
} else
//not sure of the intent here either
//it would stop reading if the line was less than 1000 characters.
}
return is;
This uses strings for ease of use, and no maximum limits on lines. It also uses the std::getline for the dynamic/magic everything, but I did not translate the bit in the middle since it seemed very buggy to me, and I couldn't interpret the intent.
The part in the middle simply reads two characters at a time until it reaches the end of the file, and then everything after that would have done bizarre stuff since you weren't checking return values. Since it was completely wrong, I didn't interpret it.

File I/O logic with a while statement, how would this code be expected to behave?

I'm trying to understand some differences in file i/o techniques. Suppose I have the following code:
FILE *work_fp;
char record[500] = {0};
while(!feof(work_fp))
{
static int first = 1;
fgets(record, 200, work_fp);
if (first)
{
var1 = 2;
length += var1;
}
first = 0;
if (feof(work_fp))
{
continue;
}
if((int)strlen(record) < length)
{
fclose(work_fp);
std::ostringstream err;
err << "ERROR -> Found a record with fewer bytes than required in file."
<< std::endl;
throw std::runtime_error(err.str());
}
const int var2 = 1;
if(memcmp(argv[1], record + var2, 3) == 0)
{
load_count_struct(record, var1);
}
}
I'm not seeing how the second if argument can be true.
if (feof(work_fp))
{
continue;
}
If feof(work_fp) is true wouldn't the while argument be false? Then the continue could never get called?
FOLLOW UP QUESTION:
Ok, I see how fgets can cause work_fp to reach eof conditions.
Suppose I want to try and implement this another way. Using getline(), for example.
std::string data(file);
std::ifstream in(data.c_str());
if (!in.is_open())
{
std::ostringstream err;
err << "Cannot open file: " << file << std::endl;
throw std::runtime_error(err.str());
}
std::string buffer = "";
std::string record = "";
while (getline(in, buffer))
{
static int first = 1;
if (first)
{
var1 = 2;
length += var1;
}
first = 0;
if (//What should go here?!?)
{
break;
}
// etc...
}
Any suggestions? I'm thinking
if (buffer == std::string::npos)
no?
The line:
fgets(record, 200, work_fp);
can advance to read/write head to the end of the file, thus changing the return value on feof.
First of all, your code invokes undefined behaviour, because you've not initialized work_fp, yet you're using it, passing it to feof(), first in while(!feof(work_fp))
, and elsewhere in the code.
Anyway, supposing you initialize it by opening some file, then I would answer your question as follows:
The following code reads some data from the file using work_fp, that means, it is possible that feof(work_fp) will return true in the second if condition, because after reading data using fgets(), the file pointer work_fp may reach end of file.
fgets(record, 200, work_fp);
In the while loop fgets() is called and the file pointer is advanced. Then if(feof(work_fp)) checks if the end of the file is reached. If so then continue the while loop. The while loop then continues if the end of the file is NOT reached, which in this case will be false. Hence the logic works.
That is a weird statement, and I think it should be
if (feof(work_fp)){
break;
}
The continue; can get called, since it occurs after an fgets, but calling continue is pointless since that brings execution to the next iteration of the loop which is guaranteed to be false and quit the loop. It makes more sense, and is more readable/understable to put break; there.
Since you have a fgets within the while before your check on feof, the feof status of work_fp may have changed during that read, in which case, it may evaluate to true.
There is a read operation on work_fp between the while and if conditions, so that feof() could be true.
The eof can have been reached at the following line:
fgets(record, 200, work_fp);
So right after having been evaluated to false in the while statement.
This would make the
if (feof(work_fp))
evaluated to true.
But this code can be simplified.

Reading multiple files

I want to alternate between reading multiple files. Below is a simplified version of my code.
ifstream* In_file1 = new ifstream("a.dat", ios::binary);
ifstream* In_file2 = new ifstream("b..dat", ios::binary);
ifstream* In_file;
int ID;
In_file = In_file1;
int ID = 0;
//LOOPING PORTION
if (In_file -> eof())
{
In_file -> seekg(0, ios_base::beg);
In_file->close();
switch (ID)
{
case 0:
In_file = In_file2; ID = 1; break;
case 1:
In_file = In_file1; ID = 0; break;
}
}
//some codes
:
:
In_file->read (data, sizeof(double));
//LOOPING PORTION
The code works well if I am reading the files one time and I thought that everything was cool. However, if the part termed 'looping portion' is within a loop, then the behaviour becomes weird and I start having a single repeating output. Please, can someone tell me what is wrong and how I can fix it? If you have a better method of tacking the problem, please suggest. I appreciate it.
//SOLVED
Thank you everybody for your comments, I appreciate it. Here is what I simple did:
Instead of the original
switch (ID)
{
case 0:
In_file = In_file2; ID = 1; break;
case 1:
In_file = In_file1; ID = 0; break;
}
I simply did
switch (ID)
{
case 0:
In_file = new ifstream("a.dat", ios::binary); ID = 1; break;
case 1:
In_file = new ifstream("b.dat", ios::binary); ID = 0; break;
}
Now it works like charm and I can loop as much as I want:-). I appreciate your comments, great to know big brother still helps.
Let's see: the code you posted works fine, and you want us to tell you
what's wrong with the code you didn't post. That's rather difficult.
Still, the code you posted probably doesn't work correctly either.
std::istream::eof can only be used reliably after an input (or some
other operation) has failed; in the code you've posted, it will almost
certainly be false, regardless.
In addition: there's no need to dynamically allocate ifstream; in
fact, there are almost no cases where dynamic allocation of ifstream
is appropriate. And you don't check that the opens have succeeded.
If you want to read two files, one after the other, the simplest way is
to use two loops, one after the other (calling a common function for
processing the data). If for some reason that's not appropriate, I'd
use a custom streambuf, which takes a list of filenames in the
constructor, and advances to the next whenever it reaches end of file on
one, only returning EOF when it has reached the end of all of the
files. (The only complication in doing this is what to do if one of the
opens fails. I do this often enough that it's part of my tool kit,
and I use a callback to handle failure. For a one time use, however,
you can just hard code in whatever is appropriate.)
As a quick example:
// We define our own streambuf, deriving from std::streambuf
// (All istream and ostream delegate to a streambuf for the
// actual data transfer; we'll use an instance of this to
// initialize the istream we're going to read from.)
class MultiFileInputStreambuf : public std::streambuf
{
// The list of files we will process
std::vector<std::string> m_filenames;
// And our current position in the list (actually
// one past the current position, since we increment
// it when we open the file).
std::vector<std::string>::const_iterator m_current;
// Rather than create a new filebuf for each file, we'll
// reuse this one, closing any previously open file, and
// opening a new file, as needed.
std::filebuf m_streambuf;
protected:
// This is part of the protocol for streambuf. The base
// class will call this function anytime it needs to
// get a character, and there aren't any in the buffer.
// This function can set up a buffer, if it wants, but
// in this case, the buffering is handled by the filebuf,
// so it's likely not worth the bother. (But this depends
// on the cost of virtual functions---without a buffer,
// each character read will require a virtual function call
// to get here.
//
// The protocol is to return the next character, or EOF if
// there isn't one.
virtual int underflow()
{
// Get one character from the current streambuf.
int result = m_streambuf.sgetc();
// As long as 1) the current streambuf is at end of file,
// and 2) there are more files to read, open the next file
// and try to get a character from it.
while ( result == EOF && m_current != m_filenames.eof() ) {
m_streambuf.close();
m_streambuf.open( m_current->c_str(), std::ios::in );
if ( !m_streambuf.is_open() )
// Error handling here...
++ m_current;
result = m_streambuf.sgetc();
}
// We've either gotten a character from the (now) current
// streambuf, or there are no more files, and we'll return
// the EOF from our last attempt at reading.
return result;
}
public:
// Use a template and two iterators to initialize the list
// of files from any STL sequence whose elements can be
// implicitly converted to std::string.
template<typename ForwardIterator>
MultiFileInputStreambuf(ForwardIterator begin, ForwardIterator end)
: m_filenames(begin, end)
, m_current(m_filenames.begin())
{
}
};
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
#define NO_OF_FILES 2
int main ()
{
std::ifstream in;
std::string line;
std::string files[NO_OF_FILES] =
{
"file1.txt",
"file2.txt",
};
// start our engine!
for (int i = 0; i < NO_OF_FILES; i++)
{
in.open(files[i].c_str(), std::fstream::in);
if (in.is_open())
{
std::cout << "reading... " << files[i] << endl;
while (in.good())
{
getline(in, line);
std::cout << line << std::endl;
}
in.close();
std::cout << "SUCCESS" << std::endl;
}
else
std::cout << "Error: unable to open " + files[i] << std::endl;
}
return 0;
}

Checking for an empty file in C++

Is there an easy way to check if a file is empty. Like if you are passing a file to a function and you realize it's empty, then you close it right away? Thanks.
Edit, I tried using the fseek method, but I get an error saying 'cannot convert ifstream to FILE *'.
My function's parameter is
myFunction(ifstream &inFile)
Perhaps something akin to:
bool is_empty(std::ifstream& pFile)
{
return pFile.peek() == std::ifstream::traits_type::eof();
}
Short and sweet.
With concerns to your error, the other answers use C-style file access, where you get a FILE* with specific functions.
Contrarily, you and I are working with C++ streams, and as such cannot use those functions. The above code works in a simple manner: peek() will peek at the stream and return, without removing, the next character. If it reaches the end of file, it returns eof(). Ergo, we just peek() at the stream and see if it's eof(), since an empty file has nothing to peek at.
Note, this also returns true if the file never opened in the first place, which should work in your case. If you don't want that:
std::ifstream file("filename");
if (!file)
{
// file is not open
}
if (is_empty(file))
{
// file is empty
}
// file is open and not empty
Ok, so this piece of code should work for you. I changed the names to match your parameter.
inFile.seekg(0, ios::end);
if (inFile.tellg() == 0) {
// ...do something with empty file...
}
Seek to the end of the file and check the position:
fseek(fileDescriptor, 0, SEEK_END);
if (ftell(fileDescriptor) == 0) {
// file is empty...
} else {
// file is not empty, go back to the beginning:
fseek(fileDescriptor, 0, SEEK_SET);
}
If you don't have the file open already, just use the fstat function and check the file size directly.
C++17 solution:
#include <filesystem>
const auto filepath = <path to file> (as a std::string or std::filesystem::path)
auto isEmpty = (std::filesystem::file_size(filepath) == 0);
Assumes you have the filepath location stored, I don't think you can extract a filepath from an std::ifstream object.
when the file is empty the tellg will give you value 0 if its empty so focus on that and it is the simplest way to find an empty file, if you just create the file it will give you -1.
outfile.seekg(0,ios::end);
if(file.tellg()<1){
//empty
}else{
file.clear(); // clear all flags(eof)
file.seekg(0,ios::beg);//reset to front
//not empty
}
If your use case offer the possibility to check for emptiness before opening the file,C++17 provides you is_empty
#include <filesystem>
if (!std::filesystem::is_empty("path.txt")) {
///Open and use the file
}
char ch;
FILE *f = fopen("file.txt", "r");
if(fscanf(f,"%c",&ch)==EOF)
{
printf("File is Empty");
}
fclose(f);
How about (not elegant way though )
int main( int argc, char* argv[] )
{
std::ifstream file;
file.open("example.txt");
bool isEmpty(true);
std::string line;
while( file >> line )
isEmpty = false;
std::cout << isEmpty << std::endl;
}
use this:
data.peek() != '\0'
I've been searching for an hour until finaly this helped!
pFile = fopen("file", "r");
fseek (pFile, 0, SEEK_END);
size=ftell (pFile);
if (size) {
fseek(pFile, 0, SEEK_SET);
do something...
}
fclose(pFile)
if (nfile.eof()) // Prompt data from the Priming read:
nfile >> CODE >> QTY >> PRICE;
else
{
/*used to check that the file is not empty*/
ofile << "empty file!!" << endl;
return 1;
}