Thread: Help filling a structure with data from a file.

Good catch, Daved, I didn't even notice that bug. I'll repost it with your fix. I guess I might as well remove the if check too, as you pointed out, s will never be blank at that point.

Code:

         int i = 0;
         while(getline(inDataFile, s, ','))
         {
              p[i].price = s;
              getline(inDataFile, s, delimiter = ',');
              p[i].serialNum = s;
              getline(inDataFile, s, delimiter = ',');
              p[i].descript = s;
              getline(inDataFile, s, delimiter = '\n');
              istringstream stream1(s);
              int h;
              stream1 >> h;
              p[i].order = h;
              i++;
         }//!End while not end of file.

For more robust error checking you could read in a whole line from the file and then break it up. (Sort of like using fgets()+sscanf() instead of fscanf(). I know this is the C++ forum but that's the only example I can think of at the moment.)

>For more robust error checking you could read in a whole line from the file and then break it up.
Or you could place each of the getline's with the exception of the first one (the one in the while loop) within an if statement.

That's why I gave the fgets()+sscanf() vs. fscanf() metaphor. I was hoping to avoid this argument. That's what I used to say when someone said "fgets()+sscanf() is better than fscanf()!" I would say "There's no difference, in fact fscanf() is better because you don't have an intermediate buffer!" But Quzah + Dave_Sinkula (I think) convinced me otherwise. It's much easier to recover from an error if you have the whole line read in. I can't remember how they convinced me at the moment, but you can do a search on it.

Then again, maybe that's specific to fscanf() and has no application here.

>"fgets()+sscanf() is better than fscanf()!"
It's certainly better if you're reading from stdin. Why it would be better when reading from a file, I'm not sure. Perhaps the answer would depend on the format of your file.

Why would it be better? fgets() reads from a file stream, and sscanf() parses the resulting buffer; or fscanf() reads from the file stream directly. stdin doesn't enter into the equation (unless you're thinking of scanf()).

Yes, it does depend somewhat on the format of your file. For example, if you don't want to skip blank lines, then you have to read the line in with fgets(), because fscanf() will skip whitespace.

>stdin doesn't enter into the equation (unless you're thinking of scanf()).
You can use fgets to read from stdin. In fact it's the only standard C library function you can use to read one line at a time without running the risk of invoking undefined behavior.

True, but I don't see why fgets()+sscanf() would have an advantage over fscanf() when reading from stdin as opposed to an ordinary input file stream. Unless that wasn't your point.

Originally Posted by dwks

True, but I don't see why fgets()+sscanf() would have an advantage over fscanf() when reading from stdin as opposed to an ordinary input file stream. Unless that wasn't your point.

It seems like it would be an advantage if the user is asked to enter more than one item per line. With fgets+sscanf you can ask the user to reenter the data. With fscanf you'd probably lose track of where you are.

Originally Posted by swoopy

It seems like it would be an advantage if the user is asked to enter more than one item per line. With fgets+sscanf you can ask the user to reenter the data. With fscanf you'd probably lose track of where you are.

Yes, that's true.

Thank you, twomers, for unhijacking this thread.

Hey twomers, do you need boost to compile your code? I tried compiling it with Dev-C++ with no luck. I included about five headers, but still no luck.

>I don't have boost ... these are the headers I had when I compiled it, I think.
Ok, I'll give that a shot.

>Congrads on post num 2000, swoopy
Woohoo, thanks twomers, and thanks to dwks, now I can relax.