Thread: Writing to a file and not overwriting it

Hey guys, I'm trying to make a file that records a bunch of data in a file.

Well, I want the first line to be the number of entries, and then the entries follow right afterwords.

The problem is that when I try to overwrite the # of entries on the first line, the whole file is gone except for that one number!

So, I have the program check if the file exists on startup, and if not, make a new file with the first line being "0", meaning that there are no stored data.

When something is added, I want that 0 to be changed to 1, 2, etc. The current code just overwrites the whole file, though!

How can I overwrite the first line without harming the line under it, or any other parts of the file?

Code follows:

Code:

ofstream CoolFile("C:\\recipes.dat", ios::app);

	if (CoolFile)
	{
			CoolFile << aryCurr->name << endl;
			CoolFile << aryCurr->type << endl;
			CoolFile << aryCurr->difficulty << endl;
			CoolFile << aryCurr->peopleServed << endl;
			CoolFile << aryCurr->dateAdded << endl;
			CoolFile << aryCurr->numIngredient << endl;
			CoolFile << aryCurr->numInstructions << endl;
			
			for (g=0;g <=(numberOfIngredients-1);g++)
			{
				CoolFile << aryCurr->ingredients[g].name << endl;
				CoolFile << aryCurr->ingredients[g].quantity << endl;
			}

			for (g=0;g <=(numberOfInstructions-1);g++)
			{
				CoolFile << aryCurr->instructions[g].instr << endl;
			}
			CoolFile.close();
			ofstream CoolFile("C:\\recipes.dat", ios::ate);
			CoolFile.seekp(0);
			CoolFile << *current << endl;
	}
	
	CoolFile.close();

Thanks!
sirSolarius