Thread: reading a file problem

Hey guys I am using code that does the following:

Code:

cin.ignore(); 
cin.getline(file, 250);

ifstream test;

  test.open (file);

	if (test.fail())
		{
		  cout<<"error"<<endl;

		  exit(1);
	     }

...

The problem is that if a file name is entered that does not exist for example c:\\fred.txt the error message will not appear and the txt file fread will be created. Any ideas what I have done wrong?

Thanks.