Reading a binary file like a matrix of ints

Hi everyone,

I would like to read a binary file as quickly as possible. Right now I am reading integer by integer, but that could end up being slow.. I imagine, it is probably best to put it all in a big buffer, but then I don't know how to convert that to an array of integers.

so far this is a snippet of the code I have:

Code:

    
std::ifstream file("InvDat.dat",
        ios_base::in | ios_base::binary);

    char buf[BUF_SIZE]; //BUF_SIZE is 4

    if(file.is_open())
    {
		while (file.read(reinterpret_cast<char*>(&buf[0]), sizeof(uint32_t)))
		{
			uint32_t *num = reinterpret_cast<uint32_t* >(&buf[0]);
	        std::cout << left << setw(10) << *num << " ";
		}
		std::cout << endl;
    }
    file.close();

Any help appreciated,

Ted.

Well you've got num, right? That's your array. num[0] is the first number, num[1] is the second number, etc.

The only difficulty is that four bytes may or may not even get you one number, depending on your system. You should make your buffer as big as you need it.

There's also no good reason for you to make your buffer of type char.

Code:

int big_pile_of_numbers[1000];
file.read(reinterpret_cast<char*>big_pile_of_numbers, sizeof(big_pile_of_numbers));

How could I tell that the buffer is completely full or more like when it isn't completely full as there were no 1000 numbers, how can I prevent myself from accessing garbage locations?

Ted.

From cplusplus.com:

Calling member gcount after this function the total number of characters read can be obtained.