in what position is a file opened?

I do this

Code:

---

ifstream codefin;
ofstream codefout;

while (not_annoyed)
{
    codefout.open("bar");
    // write to  bar, works fine
    codefout.bar();
    system("command to change bar to foo");

    codefin.open("foo");
    if (!codefin.is_open())
        cout<<"ERROR: couldn't open foo for reading"<<endl;
    if (codefin.eof())
        cout<<"FRACK!\n";
    while (!codefin.eof())
        getline(codefin,text);
    codefin.close();
}

---

The result is "FRACK!" the second time I run this code (it is done in a while loop)
Why? Shouldn't the file be opened in the beginning? The file "foo" is changed before each run, but that shouldn't matter, should it?

I'm guessing that the first time you read through the input file you reach eof and the stream's relevant flag gets set and stay's set even when the file is closed and later reopened in the second iteration of the loop. When you check eof this time, the flag is still 'true' and thus you get the "FRACK" output. You need to clear the stream's flags each time through the loop. I'd also suggest not testing for eof in the while loop and instead testing the return result from the getline call directly:

Code:

---

while( getline(codefin,text) );
codefin.close();
codefin.clear();

---

I think the clear() part solved it! Great! Thank you!
Now, what difference is it when I put the getline in the while loop? In what way is your suggestion better?

Sometimes you will get an error when reading in a file (not very often with getline). If you are using eof() to control your loop and there is an error, eof() will not return true, and the loop will go on forever. Also, if there is an extra newline in your file (which there almost always is), and you read with operator >> instead of getline, then eof() will not return true until you read the trailing newline. This often leads to the while loop executing one extra time. Again, this problem doesn't happen if you use a single getline exclusively in your loop.

In this example there should be any problems (unless you get some read error), but it is good practice to not use eof() to control the loop so that when you use more complicated code to read in the file you won't have any problems. Putting the getline inside the while loop won't hurt, but it might help in this case and will almost certainly help later. If you use operator >> to read from the file you should use that as the while control as well.