Searching a binary file

I am trying to write a function which searches a binary file for the occurance of a particular string of characters. I've made some progress but have got a little stuck. Here's what I have come up with so far

Code:

---

void searchRandomObjectForName(string fname)
   
{
            int index = 0;
            string search, name;
            cout << "Enter a string to search the file for: " << flush;
        cin >> search;
            ifstream is(fname.c_str(), ios::binary); // open file to read

        // while we can read from the file
        while(is.read(reinterpret_cast<char *>(&name), sizeof(int)))
        {
                  // search here, print out string and position in the file
            // or print "string not found message."
        }
          is.close(); // close file when done
            cout << endl;
}

---

Can anybody help out?

http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showthread.php?t=13473

One solution is strstr().

Kuphryn

The file is binary, so I guess it'd be safe to assume that strings aren't the best thing to store data in.

Here's one way of doing what you want

Code:

---

#include <iostream>
 #include <fstream>
 
 int main()
 { 
  char  LookForArray[] = "\x11\x12\x13";
  int  Len = sizeof(LookForArray) - 1;
  int  LookForByte = 0;
  int  c;
  std::ifstream is("myfile.bin", std::ios::binary);
 
  while (LookForByte < Len && (c = is.get()) != EOF)
  {
        if (c == LookForArray[LookForByte])
          LookForByte++;
        else LookForByte = 0;
  }
 
  if (LookForByte == Len)
  {
        std::cout <<"item was found" <<std::endl;
  }
  else
  {
        std::cout <<"item was not found" <<std::endl;
  }
 
  is.close();
 }

---

Another solution is memchr().

Kuphryn