I don't know if I've asked this question before, but,
I assume FILE* is C and ifstream/ofstream is C++, but is there any real advantage of using one over the other? Are there any major differences between the two that I should know about while writing projects that deal with file i/o?? If they are identical (as they basically seem to be) why were they both created?
Thanks.
That's a cool site, thanks eibro.
The biggest reason I saw on that site for using filestreams is that you can create your own streams using inheritance, which makes sense. That and the 'iostream' classes are less error prone to use
I'm not entirely sure what that means, 'without breaking existing code'? Maybe someone smarter can elaborateQuote:
Extensible: The C++ <iostream> mechanism allows new user-defined types to be I/O'd without breaking existing code. Imagine the chaos if everyone was simultaneously adding new incompatible "%" fields to printf() and scanf()?!).
You can overload the >> and << for every single data type you'd like, and your streams are checked statically by the compiler.
Imagine being able to add a %m field to printf() so you could print out your matrix class. Well, suppose someone else added an %m field as well; the ambiguty wouldn't be resolved by the compiler, as printf isn't typesafe and everything is checked dynamically.
Unforseen consequences. That's how I interpret it.