File Empty?

[quizkiwi]

I am trying to read from a file with a list of numbers and add them to a vector. Initially, this file will be empty, but after the user has entered more data(from other parts of my code) it will contain the list of numbers.

My problem is that when i ouput the vector to the screen, tlist[0] is rubbish, or if i initialize data it will be what i initialized it to. If i read in an integer before the while loop, it takes care of the problem...only the first time however. Once there is data in the file, it gets screwed up.

Any thoughts? Am I going about this the right way?

ifstream filein("List.txt");

vector <int> tlist;
int counter = 0, data;

while( ! filein.eof() ) 
{
    filein >> data;
    tlist.push_back(data);
}
filein.close();

Output when the file starts empty:
-89545645
23
45
34

[Daved]

You shouldn't control your loop with eof(). You should use the return value of operator>> instead:

while (filein >> data)
  tlist.push_back(data);

[quizkiwi]

Thanks, that solved it.

Should i stay away from eof() in general?

[Daved]

Using the return value of the read operation (whether it is operator>>, getline, or something else) is probably better since it accounts for other errors as well. The point is that you want to check to see if the read worked before using the value that was read in. In your original code, you don't check to make sure the read worked before you push back value on to your vector.

[MadCow257]

http://faq.cprogramming.com/cgi-bin/...&id=1043284351

[hk_mp5kpdw]

Output when the file starts empty:
-89545645
23
45
34

What output? You code sample you provided does not have any output only input.

Another way to read in data from a file and into a vector would be to use the copy function along with a back_inserter:

#include <vector>
#include <fstream>
#include <algorithm>  // For the copy function
#include <iterator>   // Might be needed for back_inserter
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
    ifstream filein("List.txt");
    vector<int> tlist;

    // Get all ints from file and insert into vector tlist
    copy( istream_iterator<int>(filein), istream_iterator<int>(), back_inserter(tlist) );

    // Do stuff with vector tlist

    ...

    return 0;
}

[edit]That way of reading the file works if the file has data or is empty.[/edit]