saving/inventory help please

I'm currently making a pretty cool text/adventure rpg game. I'm running into two dilemmas, please keep in mind this is simply just console programming, no win32 or anything. First of all, almost everything is stored in a structure.
stat.maxhp;
stat.hp;
stat.exp;
etc etc etc;

and I want the user to be able to save this to a text file to be able to load next time they play, how exactly do you do this.

I'm also having trouble thinking of a way to handle the inventory. I'm pretty sure a structure is the best way, but that's about all i can come up with. I want the user to be able to access their inventory at any point in the game and be able to see what is in it as long as use it. And it be removed after it is used. Would I have to create a seperate place in the structure for each. ex

struct inv
{
potions;
numpotions;
elixir;
numelixir;
}
to store the name as well as the number that they have. And i'dd probably have to create a function to handle each of the items.

int takepotion()
int takeelixer()
etc etc;

does anyone know a halfway simple way to do this. Thanks.

When saving variables, you should save them to binary files, not text files.

1) Make a type of your stuct

typedef struct
{
...
}StructType;

2) Save it using filepointers (C) or fstream (C++)

This is an example of file pointers:

Code:

---

StructType MyStruct;

...

FILE* File;
File=fopen("Save.dat", "wb");
if(File!=NULL)
{
  write(&MyStruct, sizeof(StructType), 1, File);
  close(File);
}

---

You basically do the same when reading the file, but use read instead of write ;)

>>and I want the user to be able to save this to a text file to be able to load next time they play, how exactly do you do this.

this is the basic stuff...

Code:

---

#include<fstream.h> //used for file-handling

int main()
{
int points,health,armor;
int indata;

ofstream fout;  //used to open file for writing
ifstream fin;  //used for reading

fout.open("P1STATS.DAT");
fout<<points<<"\n"<<health<<"\n"<<armor<<"\n";
fout.close(); //close the file after work

fin.open("P1STATS.DAT");
while(!fin.eof())
{
 fin>>indata;
 cout<<indata<<"\n";
}
fin.close();

return 0;
}

---

you could also search/look around about files in c/c++/game boards as it is asked a lot of times.



>>I'm also having trouble thinking of a way to handle the inventory. I'm pretty sure a structure is the best way...

structures will be fine. if the data is global then the user can access the data any time he wants.

But this is basically done by the programming done by you. if you want him to access, then code accordingly else dont put any code where he can access.

Thanks a lot guys, i'll give it a shot