Thread: reading a char at a time from text

  1. #1
    Use this: dudeomanodude's Avatar
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    reading a char at a time from text

    Hi, I'd like to read from a text file, but one char at a time.

    I can find plenty of info on how to read in strings and manipulate them from a text file, but not much helpful stuff on doing that with single chars from a block of text.

    any suggestions?

  2. #2
    Jack of many languages Dino's Avatar
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    fgetc().
    Last edited by Dino; 01-29-2008 at 09:31 AM. Reason: oops = c++

  3. #3
    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
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    char c;
    file >> c;
    File, of course, being an istream which you've opened your file with.

    Quote Originally Posted by Todd Burch View Post
    fgetc().
    Are we playing C now in the C++ section?
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

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    Use this: dudeomanodude's Avatar
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    wow, i guess it's simpler than i imagined.

    now bear with me on this next one:

    i need to specify exactly how many chars to read in, read them in, store them in an array, add the array to a queue, then do it again until i've reached the end of file.

    obviously i can write a function with a for loop to read in the chars (as many as i need at a time). But is there an automatic buffer that will hold my place in the file? (i.e. everytime the fucntion is called, will it automatically pick up where it left off in the file?)

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    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
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    The file position in the file does not change so long as the file is open and you do not seek. So in essence, you can read a bit, do a lot of other work, then read a little again from the last position as long as you don't close the file. That means the object mustn't be destructed either.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  6. #6
    Kernel hacker
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    That's normally how files and streams work - your "current position" will only move one character at a time when you read a character, and if you want to "jump", then you need to use "setpos" or some such function to actually change the current position.

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    Mats
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    Cat without Hat CornedBee's Avatar
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    The member function read() reads into a buffer.
    All the buzzt!
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  8. #8
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    Using an istreambuf_iterator<char> should also work.

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