Thread: Why my file won't open?

I am trying to open a file with a program but it keeps failing. I typed the file into notepad and saved it as a .dat file. Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening?

Code:

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
	string filename = "bank.dat";
	ifstream inFile;

	inFile.open(filename.c_str());

	if(inFile.fail())
	{
		cout<<"\nThe file named "<<filename<<" was not successfully opened"
			<<"\nPlease check that the file currently exists."
			<<endl;
		exit(1);
	}
	cout<<"\nThe file has been successfully opened for reading."
		<<endl;

	return 0;
}

Make sure that you didn't accidentally name the file "bank.dat.txt", that is most likely what happened.

It's very hard to tell why because you haven't given us any information - such as WHY it fails. Every function allows you to get an error of some sort, telling what actually occoured and why it failed.
As mikeman118 also mentioned, make sure the filename isn't actually bank.dat.txt (remember that Windows has a bad habit of hiding known extensions by default; thus hiding the ".txt" extension).

Originally Posted by Elysia

It's very hard to tell why because you haven't given us any information - such as WHY it fails. Every function allows you to get an error of some sort, telling what actually occoured and why it failed.
As mikeman118 also mentioned, make sure the filename isn't actually bank.dat.txt (remember that Windows has a bad habit of hiding known extensions by default; thus hiding the ".txt" extension).

if this is the problem then open up an explorer window and go to tools->folder options->view and make sure that the Hide extensions for known file types box is unchecked.