Stock Management System
Kuldeep Sahu, Electronics and Communication Branch, Nit Raipur

Abstract
In a business a proper management of order or
stocks plays a vital role, say bulk orders like
laptops, desktops, television and so on. In order to
maintain this thing this paper will present a review
on stock management system which is made with
the help of data file handling. It performs various
operations like entering the information of orders,
displaying the quantities so that the product is not
out of stock, modifying the information of order,
inserting different items, deleting the items and it
also reads the information of the customer. This
system is made with the help of data file handling.
As data file handling helps in storing the
information of the stocks permanently in the
storage. In this method the seller has lifetime access
to the information and can modify, insert, delete the
details of stocks and can regulate the availability of
the stocks.
Key words: Files, file handling, streams, stocks.
Introduction
Most computer programs work with files. This is
because files help in storing information
permanently. Word processors create document
files. Database programs create files of information.
Compilers read source files and generate executable
files. So, we see, it is the files that are mostly
worked with, inside programs. A file itself is a
bunch of bytes stored on some storage device like
tape, or magnetic disks etc.
In C++, file input/output facilities are implement
through a component header file of C++ standard
library. This header file is fstream.h. In C++, a file,
at its lowest level, is interpreted simply as a
sequence, or stream, of bytes. One aspect of the file
I/O library manages the transfer of these bytes. At
this level, the notion of a data type is absent.
The fstream library predefines a set of operations
for handling file related input and output. It defines
certain classes that help one perform file input and
output. For example, ifstream class ties a file to the
program for input, ofstream class ties a file to the
program for output, and fstream class ties a file to
the program for both input and output.
ifstream An input file stream class, inherits
functions get(), getline(), read() and
functions supporting random
access( seekg() and tellg())
ofstream An output file stream class, inherits
put(), write() and functions
supporting random access (seekp()
and tellp())
fstream An input-output file stream class,
provides support for simultaneous
input and output operations
Table.1.Functions of file stream classes [1]
There are different types of filemode which
describes how a file is to be used: to read from it, to
write to it, to append it and so on.
Constants Meaning Stream
Type
ios::in It opens file for reading, input ifstream
mode.
ios::out It opens file for writing, output ofstream
mode.
ios::trunc It causes the contents of pre- ofstream,
existing file by the same name ifstream
to be destroyed.
ios::binary It causes a file to be opened in ofstream,
binary mode, no character ifstream
translations occur in files
opened in binary mode.
Table.2. File Mode Constants [1]
The five steps to use files in C++ program are:
1. Determine the type of link required, whether it is
input process, output process or both.
2. Declare a stream for the desired type of link,
ifstream, ofstream or fstream. the stocks, company of the items and their prices
3. Attach the desired file to the declared stream. respectively. If you want to add more stocks you are
4. Now process as required. provided with the option “Do want to add more”, if
5. Close the file link with stream [1]. you want you can press “Y or y” and if you don’t
While working with binary files, you do need to want then you can press “N or n”.
prefix file modes with ios::binary at the time of
opening the file. You can create the file( open them
in ios::out); read the records from binary files ( call
read() function through steam object to which file is
attached); write records in binary files (call write()
function through stream object which file is
attached). This Stock Management system is made
with the help of binary files.

Basic Operations

This stock management system provides the user to

use two profiles either you can enter into the stock Fig.3. To enter the stock information
link to deal with the stock or you can enter into the (b). If you want to see the details of the stock you
customer link to deal with the order or purchase. can choose option 2,

Fig.1. Options to login into stock or customer link

1. Login to Stock Information: In this section user is

provide with following options,

Fig.3. Display the record of stocks

Fig.2. Operations for stocks
(c). If the user wants to search the record, he/she
can do so by choosing the option 3, here you can
search the record by name, item code or by
company name. We can perform search in a binary
file opened in input mode by reading each record
then checking whether it is our desired record or
not.

(a). If you want to enter the details of the stocks you

can choose option 1 and can enter the required stock
code for the various items, item name, quantity of

Fig.4. Options to search a record
Fig.5. Searching the record by item code
(d). If you want to insert the stock information in
the file, firstly, it’s appropriate position is
determined and then records in the file prior to this
determined position are copied to temporary file,
followed by the new record to be inserted and then
the rest of the records from the file are also copied.
Fig.6. To insert a stock in the file
In this system the records prior to determined
position are copied to at temporary file temp.dat.
The new file is appended in this temporary file
temp.dat and then the rest of the record is appended.
Then the original file stock.dat is deleted by issuing
the command remove(“stock.dat”); and then the
temporary file temp.dat is renamed by issuing the
command rename(“temp.dat”, “stock.dat”);.
(e). To delete a record from the stock information
you can choose option 5. Following procedure is
carried out to delete a record:
 Firstly, determine the position of the record
to be deleted, by performing a search in the
file.
 Keep copying the records other than the
record to be deleted in a temporary file
temp.dat.
 Do not copy the record to be deleted to
temporary file temp.dat.
 Copy rest of the records to temp.dat.
 Delete original file stock.dat by using the
command remove(“stock.dat”);
 Rename temp.dat as stock.dat by using
rename(“temp.dat”, “stock.dat”);
Fig.7. Delete a record from a file
(f). If you want to modify a record , want to change
the item code, item name, quantity, company name
or price of the item, you can choose option 6. To
modify a record, the file is opened in I/O mode and
an important step is performed that gives the
beginning address of record being modified. After
the record is modified in memory, the file pointer is
once again placed at the beginning position of this
record and then record is rewritten.

Fig.8. Modify a record in a file
Conclusion
File handling in C++ refers to the task of storing
data in the form of input or output produced by
running C++ programs in data file, namely, a text
file or a binary file for future reference and analysis.
In this Stock Management system data file handling
plays a vital role because of the following reasons:
(i) It helps in preserving the data or information of
the stocks generated after running the program.
(ii) Using files you need not worry about the
problem of storing data in bulk.
(iii) It saves time. There are certain programs that
require a lot of input from the user. You can easily
access any part of the code with the help of certain
commands.
(iv)You can easily transfer the contents of a file
from one computer system to another without
having to worry about the loss of data.
(ii) We can display the information stored in the
system. This is done by reading the information
stored in the system which is done by the input
stream called ifstream class.
(iii) We can search the record in the stocks. Here we
are provided with various options to search like we
can search by item code, item name, company
name. We read the records and check whether it is
our desired record or not.
(iii) We can also insert new records in the file. This
is done by finding the appropriate position of the
new record then records in the file prior to this
determined position are copied to temporary file,
followed by the new record and then rest of the
records.
(iv)We can delete the records in the file which are
not needed.
(v) If the user has entered some wrong information
in the file, then the user can modify the record from
the stock.
References
[1]. Computer Science with C++, Textbook XII,
Vol I, by Sumita Arora, Chapter 7 Data file
handling, Page 301-337.

Result
With the help of data file handling we have
successfully created a stock management system.
This system helps the user to maintain a large
amount of stocks as in case of inventory where we
can do the following operations:
(i) We can store the details of the stocks in the
system which is stored permanently in the system.
This is done with the help of output stream called
ofstream class.