help printing a file to screen

hey,

i was having some troubles printing the contents of a file to screen..this is what ive got...for some reason nothing get printed..

Code:

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int parser::readFile(void) {

        string filename="data.txt";
        string line;
 
        ifstream file(filename.c_str());
 
        if(!file.is_open()) {

                cout << "Error...file is not opened" << endl;
        return 0;
        }
       
        else
                return 1;
       

        while (!file.eof()) {

                getline(file, line);
                cout << line << endl;
        }

        file.close();
}

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thanks for any help

Quote:

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Originally Posted by waxydock

Code:

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int parser::readFile(void) {

        string filename="data.txt";
        string line;
 
        ifstream file(filename.c_str());
 
        if(!file.is_open()) {

                cout << "Error...file is not opened" << endl;
        return 0;
        }
       
        else
                return 1;
       

        while (!file.eof()) {

                getline(file, line);
                cout << line << endl;
        }

        file.close();
}

---

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If the file can't be opened, you show an error. Your else statement means that if the file can be opened, then return 1 (thus exiting the function). Take out that whole else block.

Your function always returns before it is able to read from the file:

Code:

---

if(!file.is_open()) {

        cout << "Error...file is not opened" << endl;
      return 0;
}
       
else
        return 1;

---

What other possibility is there? If the file is open, your function returns, and if the file isn't open, it returns.

In addition, returning 0 is usually supposed to indicate all is well, e.g. that is why main() ends with return 0. If the file cannot be opened, you probably want to return something different from 0, e.g return 1. It doesn't really matter what number you return, and in any case you can do something like this:

Code:

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int return_state;
parser parser1;

if(parser1.readFile() == 1)
    cout<<"Unable to read from file\n";

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