Checking to make sure a file opened

I've tried a variety of B.S. ways that I concocted to try and check if a file is opened after I try to open it. A couple of them work, but it's really sloppy code and probably uneccessary. Is there a standard way to check?

I'm opening my file like this:

ifstream myFile;
myFile.open("myFile.dat");

Thanks!

Code:

---


if (myFile.fail())
{
...
}
else
{
...
}

---

Great, thanks! This is why I'm always so nervous about writing my own functions to do these things...it's usually already done for me.

Thanks again,
Kevin

As i recently learned, the fail() function will not return true until eof is found, and there are often better ways to do this. My example will work, but a quick review of my thread link below may help to elaborate on the topic:

http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showt...threadid=35914

Also, as far as writing your own functions go, its always a good idea for practice. Writing your own functions to do things, wether they can already be done through a pre-made function, is a good way to get a understanding for C++ and how things work.

Happy coding!

-RoD

That's strange...how can it find EOF if it can't even open it?

It cant. I was speaking in terms of some different implementations of the fail function. In the case the above link presents, it is used in a while loop as a condition for the loop. When used in that instance extra code was needed to make the function act as i wished.

Sorry to confuse,

-RoD

Ok, I understand I think. Just to make sure I understand though, the statement:

if (myFile.fail())
{
//code
}

Will work fine on its own, but when used in the context of a loop it must find EOF before it will return true?

To my knowledge thats correct, yes.

Great, thanks for all your help. It's the little things like this that really make me better.

Ditto, and anytime.

-RoD