Thread: Format text(ifstream, ofstream)

Originally Posted by R.Stiltskin

Why are you writing the entire buffer? If you read a 5 letter word into a 70 character buff, buff contains those 5 letters, plus a '\0', plus 64 bytes of garbage.

Use

Code:

output << buff;
output.close();

which will stop writing when it reaches the null character.

i had tried that too but the output file was blank.

Originally Posted by jackfraust

i had tried that too but the output file was blank.

That will only happen if there was a 0 at the beginning of buff (unless you have another error someplace else in your code). Take a look at this. Try running it & see what the output is. Whatever "cout << " sends to the screen, "output << " will send exactly the same thing to your file (assuming of course that you have defined output as an ofstream and opened it):

Code:

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <cstring>
using namespace std;

int main () {
  ifstream input("input.txt");
//  ofstream output("output.txt");
  const int MAX = 70;  // instead of 100 
  char buff[MAX];

    int i;
    for(i = 0; i<5; ++i )
      buff[i] = 98+i;
     
    cout << "I did not terminate my string with a 0 so strlen\n";
    cout << "will give the length from buff[0] to the first 0 it happens\n";
    cout << "to find.\nThis prints every byte from buff[0] up to and\n";
    cout << "including the first \"random\" zero as a 1-byte unsigned number:\n";
    for(i = 0; i <= strlen(buff); ++i )
      cout << (int)(unsigned char)*(buff+i) << "\n";
    cout << endl;
    cout << "Some of the \"garbage\" characters may be unprintable, or line\n";
    cout << "feed or backspace or carriage return or extended ascii chars.\n";
    cout << "Here's the same thing when cout tries to show it as text:\n"; 
    cout << buff << endl;

    cout << "Now see what happens if I properly terminate the string.\n";
    buff[5] = '\0';
    cout << "As numbers:\n";
    for(i = 0; i <= strlen(buff); ++i )
      cout << (int)(unsigned char)*(buff+i) << " ";
    cout << endl <<endl;
    cout << "and as letters:\n";
    cout << buff <<endl;

}

What I don't understand is why, when I run the code that I posted in #32, cout prints a garbage character at the beginning of the line "Now see what happens if I ...".

This happens even if I put "cout.flush()" before that line. The only way to avoid that seems to be to print any non-printable ascii char before that line.

This problem does not occur when I send the output to a file rather than the console.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by matsp

[Note, they are not as random as the result of rand() ...

Yes, that's why I called them "random".

(I suppose I should also call the output of rand() "random", but that's another topic altogether and will only confuse the op even more.)

Originally Posted by R.Stiltskin

That will only happen if there was a 0 at the beginning of buff (unless you have another error someplace else in your code). Take a look at this. Try running it & see what the output is. Whatever "cout << " sends to the screen, "output << " will send exactly the same thing to your file (assuming of course that you have defined output as an ofstream and opened it):

Code:

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <cstring>
using namespace std;

int main () {
  ifstream input("input.txt");
//  ofstream output("output.txt");
  const int MAX = 70;  // instead of 100 
  char buff[MAX];

    int i;
    for(i = 0; i<5; ++i )
      buff[i] = 98+i;
     
    cout << "I did not terminate my string with a 0 so strlen\n";
    cout << "will give the length from buff[0] to the first 0 it happens\n";
    cout << "to find.\nThis prints every byte from buff[0] up to and\n";
    cout << "including the first \"random\" zero as a 1-byte unsigned number:\n";
    for(i = 0; i <= strlen(buff); ++i )
      cout << (int)(unsigned char)*(buff+i) << "\n";
    cout << endl;
    cout << "Some of the \"garbage\" characters may be unprintable, or line\n";
    cout << "feed or backspace or carriage return or extended ascii chars.\n";
    cout << "Here's the same thing when cout tries to show it as text:\n"; 
    cout << buff << endl;

    cout << "Now see what happens if I properly terminate the string.\n";
    buff[5] = '\0';
    cout << "As numbers:\n";
    for(i = 0; i <= strlen(buff); ++i )
      cout << (int)(unsigned char)*(buff+i) << " ";
    cout << endl <<endl;
    cout << "and as letters:\n";
    cout << buff <<endl;

}

Here's the code:

Code:

#include <fstream>
using std::ofstream;
using std::ifstream;
#include <iostream>
using std::cin;
using std::cout;
using std::cerr;
#include <sstream>
#include <iomanip>
#include <cstring>
using std::string;
using namespace std;
#include <cstdlib>
using std::exit;
#include <stdio.h>
#include <iterator>


int main (void)
{


	int width;   //width of output line text
	
	string name; //input string for location of text file
	
	cout << "Enter name of input text file(location on disk):  "<<endl;  
	getline (cin, name);				//Prompts user to input source text	

	ifstream input;					//create stream object homework
	input.open ( name.c_str() );		//reads source text file
	
	cout << "\n\nEnter name of the output text file:  " <<endl;
	getline (cin, name); //Promt user to input output text

	ofstream output;	//create stream object homework2
	output.open (name.c_str() );

	if (!input) {
    cerr << "Unable to open file hw6.txt";
	exit(1); }  // call system to stop

	if(!output){
	cerr << "Unable to create text file\n";
	exit(1);} //call system to stop
	
// create reader objects

	cout << "Enter the width for the output of the text (40 -  70):  " ;  //Prompts for range for output text
	cin >> width;
	if ( width < 40 || width > 70 )		//set range for output line text
		cout << "error...width can't be smaller than 40 or larger than 70...Re-Enter range:  ";		//re-prompts if width exceeds range
	cin >> width;


	const int MAX = 100;
	char buff[MAX];
	
  int word_length, line_length = 0;   //declare variables for length of word and line respectively
  if( input >> buff ) {
    line_length += strlen( buff );		// set line length
    cout << buff;
    while( input >> buff ) {
      word_length = strlen( buff );		//set word legnth
      line_length += word_length + 1;
      if( line_length > width ) {	
        cout << "\n" << buff;			//prints newline if line length exceeds desired width
        line_length = word_length;
      } else {
        cout << ' ' << buff;
      }
    }
    cout << "\n";
  }

		
	
        output << buff;			//stores buff into created text file
        
		output.close();			//close ofstream


         input.close();
	

return 0;
}

i used name.c_str() because the compiler was having problem when i tried to Prompt for the source file name. And i didn't have to enter two \\ as i would with cin.

Originally Posted by jackfraust

i used name.c_str() because the compiler was having problem when i tried to Prompt for the source file name. And i didn't have to enter two \\ as i would with cin.

I'm not sure it was the compiler that was having a problem
but whatever that was, you seem to have worked it out.

Originally Posted by jackfraust

Code:

	
        output << buff;			//stores buff into created text file
        
		output.close();			//close ofstream


         input.close();
	

return 0;
}

Your problem is that by the time you get around to writing to the file, the only thing in buff is the LAST word of the input. Read your code again. The only thing that is EVER in buff is a single word -- the most recent word that was extracted from the input. Each time you read in a new word, it overwrites the previous one. To send everything to the file instead of the screen, replace all of the "cout << buff" lines with "output << buff", etc. Or, if you want the output to go to the console AND the file, do both:

Code:

cout << buff;
output << buff;

thanks man, I had to use a conditional structure in case the person using the program input a width that was out of range.

on the cout, output question. shouldnt cout also be usable when dealing with ofstream?

Originally Posted by jackfraust

on the cout, output question. shouldnt cout also be usable when dealing with ofstream?

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking here. cout is an ostream object that is predefined to write to standard output -- in general the console. It can be redirected to a file using the cstdio function freopen() but if you do that I don't know if there is any way to restore it to the console. Anyway, there's usually no reason to redirect cout. If you want to write to a file, you simply define another ostream (or ofstream) object for that purpose. When you want to write to the file, use that one; when you want to write to the screen, use cout; when you want to write to both places, use both.

hay i have been having the same problem my compiler is not read it properly
do you have more methods of doing this "ofstream fileOut(P)" taking user input and using it as a file address....



here is my program i could not get to work!!!!

Code:

int main()
{

string P = "";

cout << "Input Directery Example: \" C:\\Users\\mugen\\Desktop\\data.txt \" " << endl;

getline(cin, P);

ofstream fileOut(P);  //does not seem to read string "P" how do i get it to work


system("pause");
}

i don't have to overload "ofstream.open()" do it if so what is the definition for it...i haven't learned more then operation overload yet!!!

The ofstream constructor takes a c-string (char array) as its argument, not a std::string.

Try

Code:

ofstream fileOut( P.c_str() );