reading in an empty field

I have the following code to read data from a comma-delimited file. This works as long as each field is present. However, if I get a line like 1234,fname,lname,,01,0,123456789 then the program dies on the null at the time of the push_back. How can I convert that null to a space?

Code:

		void initialize_vector(std::vector<record*>& vec)
		{
			
			char detailline[100];
			std::string sdetailline;
			char * s; // element placeholder
			char * dup_str;
			std::string tempstring;
			int colcount = 0;
			int daysapart = 0;
			
			//assign tmp as pointer to record struct
			record* tmp;
			std::ifstream fin;
			fin.open ("zz.csv", std::ios::in);    
			if(fin.fail())
				{
				throw read_exception();
				}
			while(!fin.fail() && !fin.eof())
				{
				fin.getline(detailline, 100, '\n');
				if (detailline[0] != NULL) 
					{
					dup_str = strdup(detailline); // make (malloc) copy of input string
					s = dup_str; // first element is at start
					strtok(s, ","); // first element is now NUL-terminated
					colcount++;
					tmp = new record;
					tempstring = s;

					tmp->corp = static_cast<std::string>(s);

					while (s != NULL) 
					{
						s = strtok(NULL, ","); // move to next
						if (colcount == 1)
						{
							tmp->lastname = static_cast<std::string>(s);
						}
						else if (colcount == 2)
						{
							tmp->firstname = static_cast<std::string>(s);
						}
						else if (colcount == 3)
						{
							tmp->lwi = static_cast<std::string>(s);
						}
						else if (colcount == 4)
						{
							tmp->grade = static_cast<std::string>(s);
						}
						else if (colcount == 5)
						{
							tmp->tanf = static_cast<std::string>(s);
						}
						else if (colcount == 6)
						{
							tmp->ssn = static_cast<std::string>(s);
						}
						colcount++;
					}
					colcount = 0;
					//std::cout << tmp->lastname<<std::endl;
					vec.push_back(tmp);
					free(dup_str); // release copy - you should have made copies of any required elements before doing this !
					}
				}
			fin.close();
		}

I'm not sure what the best solution is for your strtok and strdup functions, but I do know that using C++ stringstreams would work well. All you would do is check the return value of the stream's getline (used with ',' as the delimiter) to see if something was read in.

thanks, I'll see what I can find.

COuldn't turn up much but I did remember I have a split function that would work here and get me the functionality i need.

Here is a little snippet of your code re-written with C++ only. IMO it is easier, you just have to get familiar with the tools.

Code:

while (getline(fin, sdetailline))
{
  int colcount = 0;
  tmp = new record;
  std::istringstream istrLine(sdetailline);
  while (getline(istrLine, tempstring, ',')
  {
    switch (colcount)
    {
      case 0:
        tmp->corp = tempstring;
        break;
      case 1:
        tmp->lastname = tempstring;
        break;
      case 2:
        tmp->firstname = tempstring;
        break;
      // ...
      case 6:
        tmp->ssn = tempstring;
        break;
    }
    colcount++;
  }
  vec.push_back(tmp);
}

thanks, I'll read up on istringstream...and eat a little lunch.