My program crashes on this part of code:
if(fclose(_device) != SUCCESS){
cerr << "Output device library error CLOSING FILE\n";
exit(1);
}
It doesn't print anything, and when i write instead this line:
cout << fclose(_device)<<endl;
It doesn't print anything either, and just crashes my program with no further comments.
In an earlier part of my program, i initialize the file with this line:
_device = fopen ((char*)filename , "a");
What can cause such a crash to my program?
Also if your program has bugs which result in writing memory randomly, it might be that the information fclose needs to use to close the file gets overwritten.
You could try to use a memory checking tool, like valgrind, to check this is not the case.
Could be a failure on open, after
_device = fopen ((char*)filename , "a");
check that _device != NULL
Edit Since you are checking that _device is valid after being opened, I'd tend to use the debugger to check the value of _device on opening and compare it to the value being passed to _fclose. Out of interest, is _device pointing to a file or a comms devices such as "COM2:" as this could also have some bearing on the problem. Lastly, I'd break down your final statement as follows;
int CloseResult = fclose(_device);
if (CloseResult != 0)
cout << errno << CloseResult << endl;
Reason for this is that you don't know if the fclose or stream output is the cause of your crash. I'm assuming that the stream your outputting to isn't linked to the file your trying to close ;)
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.
Wrote a program that has a method that opens a popen command to a temporary file, reads the output and parses for use somewhere else in the program. If the command succeeds, program works as expected. However, if the popen tries a command that fails, the file still has a valid pointer but when the program tries to read the data with fgets the program seg faults.
Function body:
std::map<std::string,size_t> cols;
const char* command = command_string.c_str();
if (FILE *fp = popen(command,"r")) {
char buff[linesize];
std::vector<std::string> list;
std::cout << "here, popen succeeded\n";
std::cout << fp << '\n';
while (fgets(buff,linesize,fp)) {
std::cout << "here, fgets succeeded\n";
std::string data(buff);
list.push_back(data);
}
parse_cols(list);
pclose(fp);
}
else {
std::cout << "Failed to open bash shell when trying to run command\n";
std::exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
With the output:
here, popen succeeded
0x1cc2430
sh: my_command: command not found
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
Is it possible to handle this error? It's a somewhat useful error, but I'd like to be able to handle it rather then just relying on the seg fault. I tried looking at the FILE struct, but seems to be different for different C library versions.
Popen is a beast. It only returns nullptr when fork or pipe fails, but in your case they do not.
However, your program should not segfault. When shell returns failure, you should be reading from a valid (albeit empty) stream. Than fgets() returns NULL because end of file occurs while no characters have been read.
Than you are calling parse_calls - a function we do not see - but I have reasons to believe it can't handle the empty list. Crash stacks could be of further help when it comes to pinpointing the actual problem, which is not in popen or fgets.
As far as I know, stream.ignore(n, 'n') should ignore an (n) amount of characters or if ‘\n’ is reached, and skip over to the next line, however, when I run the next code:
// include...
void insertInfo(int info) {
std::fstream stream("infoFile.txt"); // Open the file
while (!stream.eof()) {
std::string a{};
// getline(stream, a); <--- Tried this, didn't work either
stream.ignore(99, '\n');
} // Skip to the last line without any number, in theory
std::cout << info << std::endl; // Check if the output it's correct (Which is)
stream << info; // Insert the info
stream.close(); // Close the file
}
void main() //Main
{
std::cout << "Enter your name, followed by the info you want to add to infoFile:" << std::endl;
std::string info, temp = "";
std::getline(std::cin, temp); // Get the info input
std::stringstream sstream;
sstream << temp;
sstream >> temp >> info; // Remove the name keeping only the info
temp = ""; // ^
std::string::size_type sz;
insertInfo(stoi(info, &sz)); // Convert info string into an integer and insert it in infoFile
}
The console prints out the "info" correct value, however, when I check info.txt, in which I previously wrote a '0' on, you don't see any change.
I tried removing the "ignore" function and it overwrites the 0, which is exactly what I was trying to prevent.
I also tried using "getline" function but the same thing happens.
What is the error here?
Problem
Cannot write to file.
Why
void insertInfo(int info) {
std::fstream stream("infoFile.txt"); // Open the file
Opens file with default permissions, which includes reading. The C++ Standard says I should expect "r+" behaviour and the C Standard says a file opened with "r+" behaviour must exist in order to be read (Someone please add a link if you have one). You cannot create a new file. This is problem 1. The Asker has dealt with this problem by providing a file.
Note: take care when working with files via relative paths. The program's working directory may not be where you think it is. This is problem 1a. It appears that the Asker has this taken care of for the moment.
while (!stream.eof()) {
Common bug. For more details see Why is iostream::eof inside a loop condition considered wrong? In this case since all you're looking for is the end of the file, the fact that the file hasn't been opened at all or has encountered any read errors is missed. Since a file in an error state can never reach the end of the file this quickly becomes an infinite loop. This is problem 2.
std::string a{};
// getline(stream, a); <--- Tryied this, didn't work neither
stream.ignore(99, '\n');
Always test IO transactions for success. This call can fail unchecked.
} // Skip to the last line without any number, in theory
Assuming nothing has gone wrong, and since we're not checking the error state assuming's all we can do, the file has reached the end and is now in the EOF error state. We can't read from or write to the stream until we clear this error. This is problem number 3 and likely the problem the Asker is struggling with.
std::cout << info << std::endl; // Check if the output it's correct (Wich is)
stream << info; // Insert the info
This can fail unchecked.
stream.close(); // Close the file
This is not necessary. The file will be closed when it goes out of scope.
}
Solution
void insertInfo(int info) {
std::fstream stream("infoFile.txt"); // Open the file
while (!stream.eof()) {
stream.ignore(99, '\n');
} // Skip to the last line without any number, in theory
std::cout << info << std::endl; // Check if the output it's correct (Wich is)
stream.clear(); // Added a call to clear the error flags.
stream << info; // Insert the info
stream.close(); // Close the file
}
Now we can write to the file. But let's improve this shall we?
void insertInfo(int info) {
std::fstream stream("infoFile.txt");
while (stream.ignore(99, '\n')) // moved ignore here. now we ignore, then test the result
{
}
stream.clear();
stream << info << '\n'; // added a line ending. Without some delimiter the file
// turns into one big number
}
Note that this isn't exactly kosher. If any ignore fails for any reason, we bail out and possibly write over data because the code blindly clears and writes. I'm not spending much time here trying to patch this up because we can get really, really simple and solve the problem of creating a non-existent file at the same time.
void insertInfo(int info) {
std::fstream stream("infoFile.txt", std::ios::app);
stream << info << '\n';
}
Two lines and pretty much done. With app we append to the file. We do not need to find the end of the file, the stream automatically points at it. If the file does not exist, it is created.
Next improvement: Let people know if the write failed.
bool insertInfo(int info) {
std::fstream stream("infoFile.txt", std::ios::app);
return static_cast<bool>(stream << info << '\n');
}
If the file was not written for any reason, the function returns false and the caller can figure out what to do. The only thing left is to tighten up the stream. Since all we do is write to ti we don't need the permissiveness of a fstream. Always start with the most restrictive and move to the least. This helps prevent some potential errors by making them impossible.
bool insertInfo(int info) {
std::ofstream stream("infoFile.txt", std::ios::app);
return static_cast<bool>(stream << info << '\n');
}
Now we use an ofstream and eliminate all the extra overhead and risk brought in by the ability to read the stream when we don't read the stream.
New to C++ but I have some programming experience...
I'm trying a very basic approach to getting a filename from the user, then opening the file. I'm using some non-standard libraries (Stanford libraries), but I don't think that should affect things.
ifstream in;
while(true){
string filename="";
cout << "Enter the name of the file. ";
getline(cin, filename);
in.open(filename.c_str());
if (in.fail()){
cout << "ERROR opening file. Try again.";
} else {
break;
}
}
... more code ...
If I enter a valid file name first time, it works fine and moves on. If I enter an invalid file name, I get the error message and it loops around to ask for another file name, but then it treats all subsequent entries as invalid even if the file is valid. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? Thanks!
Try calling in.clear() after if (in.fail()){. This will clear the file status bits so your next call to fail() will see the result of the last open call (as opposed to seeing last failed open status). From c++ docs:
void clear ( iostate state = goodbit );
Set error state flags Sets a new value for the error control state.
All the bits in the control state are replaced by the new ones; The
value existing before the call has no effect.
If the function is called with goodbit as argument (which is the
default value) all error flags are cleared.
I have a program that reads a set of files, closes them, and then attempt to delete them.
Sometimes (not always, but pretty often) the delete fails with 'sharing violation' error.
Using sysinternals process monitor I saw that in these cases the close operation wasn't reflected in the process monitor.
It appears that sometimes the close system call is skipped for no apparent reason, and without any exception.
This is happening on a windows 7 64bit machine using visual studio 2010.
Code sample;
void readFile(string file)
{
ifstream stream(file);
string line;
while(getline(stream, line))
{
cout << line << endl:
}
stream.close(); // this is redundant
}
// calling code:
readFile(file);
if(remove(file.c_str()) != 0)
{
cout << "file deletion failed" << endl;
}
Firsty your code is lacking a ;. Change this cout << line << endl: to this cout << line << endl;
Here's a similar problem : Any reason why an std::ofstream object won't close properly?
This could happen if you are creating processes in-between using CreateProcess with bInheritHandles=true. The new process will inherit the file handle and the file won't be closed by your main process as there is still an outstanding handle. This may explain why you can't see the close operation in Process Monitor, the OS will close the file once all handles have been released.