trouble with file i/o program.

I'm having trouble getting the file I/O working in this little program. can anyone help?
thanks for anything in advance!

Code:

---

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
        string line;
        int counter = 0;
        ifstream myFile(argv[1]);
        if(myFile.is_open())
        {
                while(! myFile.eof())
                {
                        getline(cin, line, '\n');
                        cout << line << endl;
                        counter++;
                }
                myFile.close();
                cout << "there were " << counter << " lines in the file \n";
        }
        else cout << "unable to open file \n";
        return 0;
}

---

getline(cin, line, '\n'); do you want to read from the file or from the cin?

'cin' is input from the keyboard.

Also, the basic rule for reading from a file in a loop is that the read statement itself should be the while loop conditional, e.g.

Code:

---

while( inputFile>>input)
{
        ...
        ...
}

---

inputFile>>input calls a function that reads data into the variable on the right, in this case 'input', and then the function returns what's on the left side, which in this case is inputFile, and that converts the while conditional to:

while(inputFile)

If any errors occur that will prevent you from reading data from the file, the inputFile object will evaluate to false in the while conditional. End of file(eof) is considered an error, so the while loop will terminate correctly when you reach the end of the data in a file. However, there are also other errors that can occur while reading from a file. If one of those errors occurs, then a loop such as:

Code:

---

while(!inputFile.eof())
{
        inputFile>>input
}

---

will try to keep reading in data because it hasn't encountered eof yet--but the error will prevent the read statement inside the loop from reading any data. As a result, the loop will loop indefinitely: it will not be able to read in any data because of the error and therefore it will never reach eof.

> while(! myFile.eof())
Also, you should not do this anyway - see the FAQ

So instead of:

Code:

---

                while(! myFile.eof())
                {
                        getline(cin, line, '\n');
                        cout << line << endl;
                        counter++;
                }

---

I should use something like:

Code:

---

                while(myFile >> line) // while(! myFile.eof())
                {
                        getline(myFile, line, '\n');
                        cout << line << endl;
                        counter++;
                }

---

?
Or because of the while loop do I need to use getline?

You use getline or operator>>, but not both (unless you wanted to read two times). Since you are using getline, you would place getline into the while control like this (the '\n' is optional so I removed it):

Code:

---

while (getline(myFile, line))

---

with only the output and counter increment inside the loop.

Ok! sweet :D thanks everything works perfectly now :D

thanks for the help!

Completed program:

Code:

---

/*
* Alvin David Morris
* 1/09/07
* count.cpp
*/

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
        string line;
        int counter = 0;
        ifstream myFile(argv[1]);
        if(myFile.is_open())
        {
                while(getline(myFile, line))
                {
                        cout << line << endl;
                        counter++;
                }
                myFile.close();
                cout << "there were " << counter << " lines in the file \n";
        }
        else cout << "unable to open file \n";
        return 0;
}

---

usage:

Code:

---

$g++ -o count count.cpp
$count <filename>

---

Keep in mind why it works, though -- the reading in getline() is done before (or rather while) the conditional is being evaluated; which is why, in the event of EOF, the code within the loop is not involved, even though the data is still read.