Reading in data from a file

So I need to read in a file, and process the data on each line. The basic format is (character, space, code).

Code:

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As of yet, I have been able to read in the file and get this correct information, but when it comes to the line with the space character, it looks like:

Code:

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  ..-.

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My function to read in each line fails on this one, because the >> skips the spaces. I would like to use getline(), but I only need to read in the first character, ignore the second, and read the rest of the line into another variable. The getline and get functions take in character arrays, anyone have ideas on how to fix this problem? I could just use character arrays for the whole thing, but that's wasteful; there has to be another way to accomplish this, anyone know?

Here's my code to read in the lines:

Code:

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        while (!file.eof())
        {
                char ch;
                char text[9];

                file >> ch;
                file.ignore();
                file >> text;
        }

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1) This data:

Code:

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could never be read as this:

Code:

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..-.

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2)

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file >> ch;
file.ignore();
file >> text;

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The >> operator stops reading in data at the first whitespace character(space, tab, newline), and when it starts reading in data, it skips any leading whitespace . Therefore, file.ignore() does what the >> operator was going to do anyway, so it is redundant.

3)

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My function to read in each line fails on this one, because the >> skips the spaces. I would like to use getline(), but I only need to read in the first character, ignore the second, and read the rest of the line into another variable.

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Then why not use both >> and getline()? That is when ignore() will prove useful. The >> operator reads up to but not including the trailing whitespace. Unlike with the >> operator, getline() doesn't skip leading whitespace, so if you want to skip one character, e.g. a space, you can use ignore(1). If you want to skip two characters, you can use ignore(2).

Another difference with getline() is that after it stops reading in data when it encounters the specified delimiter('\n' is the default delimiter), it removes the delimiter from the stream while the >> operator leaves the whitespace in the stream.

I don't think you understand what my goal is. I need to read in from a file, which gives a morse-like code system. Every character that is to be encoded is on a new line. The first character on a line is the character to be encoded. The second character is a space, then the remaining characters are a string of dots and hyphens. The problem I run into is on the line for the encoded space character. Since the first and second character of that line is the space character, the >> ignores both. I would like to use file.getline() but it takes in as a parameter a character array, when I need to pass in just one char.

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I don't think you understand what my goal is.

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I can only go by what you say:

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I only need to read in the first character, ignore the second, and read the rest of the line into another variable.

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The problem I run into is on the line for the encoded space character. Since the first and second character of that line is the space character, the >> ignores both. I would like to use file.getline() but it takes in as a parameter a character array, when I need to pass in just one char.

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You can use get(char& ch), ignore(), and getline() to do what you want. There is also a getline() for string types:

#include <string>
...
string str;
getline(inFile, str);

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1) This data:
Code:

Code:

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C .--.

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could never be read as this:
Code:

Code:

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  ..-.

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I never said it was. That second example is the space character. There are two leading spaces before the dots and dashes. The first space needs to be read in as the character that is to be coded, and the second one needs to be ignored, and the rest as the encoded representation of the space character.

how about file.get()?

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Originally Posted by Raven Arkadon

how about file.get()?

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I want to use this, but the variable I have for storing the first character is of type char. file.get() and file.getline() take in a character array (char*) to store the input into.

int fstream::get(...) has plenty of overloads.

one overload accepts no arguments and simply reads one byte.

note that the return type is int.
in case the call fails some error constant is returned - dont know what the name of the constant is... basically the value is negative then

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Originally Posted by Raven Arkadon

int fstream::get(...) has plenty of overloads.

one overload accepts no arguments and simply reads one byte.

note that the return type is int.
in case the call fails some error constant is returned - dont know what the name of the constant is... basically the value is negative then

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Praises (problem's fixed). I'm soooo tired right now. Too much movie watching.