File I/O example from book won't work

Hey guys,

the following code snippet is from my textbook (section about file I/O):

Code:

// datacopy.cpp
#include <cstdlib>
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int main() {

    ifstream source;
    string sFilename;
    cout << "Source file: ";
    cin >> sFilename;

    source.open(sFilename.c_str(), ios::binary|ios::in);
    if (!source) {
        cerr << sFilename << " cannot be opened.\n";
        exit(-1);
    }

    cout << "Target file: ";
    string tFilename;

    ofstream target(tFilename.c_str(), ios::binary|ios::out);
    if (!target) {
        cerr << tFilename << " cannot be opened.\n";
        exit(-1);
    }

    char ch;
    while (source.get(ch)) {
        target.put(ch);
    }

    source.close();
    target.close();

}

I typed it exactly like it is given in my textbook, but the program wouldn't even let me type in the target's file name.

I tried it with several different source file names, like test_file.txt, test_file, testfile, etc. Seems after typing in the source file name there is something remaining in the input buffer (the '\n'?), right?

Is this an error in the code snippet I should e-mail the author? Or am I wrong somewhere and don't see it myself?

EDIT: Here's an example output, just for clarification:

[dennis@marx k2]$ ./datacopy
Source file: datacopytest
Target file: cannot be opened.
[dennis@marx k2]$

That code won't compile due to a typo on line 17.

At no point has your code read a string in for the target file name.

Typo's only here, not in my code (I copy + pasted it from my editor, but I translated German names and screen text lines to English so you guys get a better understanding).

You may want to print, return distinct messages for your open failures. Example:

Code:

if(!source)
{
   std::cerr << "Failed to open source file";
   return(2);
}

if(!target)
{  
   std::cerr << "Failed to open target";
   return(3);
}

Jim

Originally Posted by jimblumberg

You may want to print, return distinct messages for your open failures.

'kay, did that. The error message in output is that of the target file. So I'm right about the input buffer thing?

As I noted in my previous post, the code is NEVER reading in a name for the target file.

Looks okay, as long as the input file exists, if the file does not exist then the open will fail. You need to get the output file name from the user then it should work correctly.

Jim

@grumpy - sorry, I missed that part of your answer. Of course you're right. Stupid me (again!). Thanks.