Thread: Cannot open binary file

I am working through the book C++ Without Fear and just got to the part where binary files are introduced. I created a program using binary files, but it can never successfully open the file. I tried some code straight from the CD that comes with the book and that had the same problem.

This is the line of code used to open the file:

Code:

fstream fileout(filename, ios::binary | ios::in | ios::out);

Any idea what is going on?

The only thing I can think of is that the file needs to already exist, but that is not true of text files, so I doubt that is the problem. If it is the problem, how would I create a binary file?

Thanks!

Below is my code, which is very similar to the code in the book.

Code:

#include <iostream>
#include <string.h>
#include <fstream>

using namespace std;

int get_int(int def);

main(){
       int recsize, recnum;
       char model[20], make[20], year[5];
       int miles;
       char filename[81];
       
       recsize = sizeof(model) + sizeof(make) + sizeof(year) + sizeof(int);
       
       cout << "Enter filename and press ENTER: ";
       cin.getline(filename, 80);
       
       fstream fileout(filename, ios::binary | ios::in | ios::out);
       
       if(! fileout){
            cout << "Error opening file.";
            getchar();
            return -1;
            }
            
       while(true){
                   cout << "Enter record to write to: ";
                   recnum = get_int(0);
                   
                   fileout.seekp(recnum * recsize);
                   
                   fileout.write(model, 20);
                   fileout.write(make, 20);
                   fileout.write(year, 5);
                   fileout.write(reinterpret_cast<char*>(&miles), sizeof(int));
                   }
       fileout.close();
       getchar();
       return 0;
       }
                   
int get_int(int def){
    char inpt_str[81];
    int inpt;
    
    cin.getline(inpt_str, 80);
    if(strlen(inpt_str) == 0){
                        inpt = def;
                        }else{
                              inpt = atoi(inpt_str);
                              }
    
    return inpt;
}

Thank you! Making the file in advanced solved the problem. I used notepad and choose encoding Unicode, instead of ASCII.