copying a file, ifstream+ofstream?

I decided I wanted to learn some file i/o and started by copying a file...specifically an image png file.. which ended up working but am wondering if this is the best/correct way to be doing this and if I could possibly run into problems ?

I used this code for a simple 2 liner of text file and it worked, then to my surprise it worked on an image without complain though.

is there a more clever way than this, that i am not seeing?

Code:

void copy_file(string srcf , const char *destf)
{
	ofstream dest;
	ifstream src;
	src.open(srcf.c_str());
	dest.open(destf);
	string words;
	while(getline(src,words))
	{
		dest << words << endl;
	}
}

and as well, I read that theres a close method.. are file automatically closed anyway? I mean my file was created .. it must have been closed by itself anyway.

Streams are closed when the variable goes out of scope (i.e., as part of the destructor). On some architectures (e.g. Windows if I recall correctly) some binary files may get mangled by getline (a \r\n pair would get translated into just \n). You can open a file in C++ in binary mode by

Code:

src.open(srcf.c_str(), ios::binary);

This should work:

Code:

dest << src.rdbuf();

At least... I GUESS it's standard compliant, but someone else should probably tell us whether I'm right.