File Handling in C++

Objective

In this chapter learner able to understand:

• File handling in C++
• File Handling classes in C++
• Reading and Writing in file
<fstream> and the File Classes
 To perform file I/O, you must include the header <fstream> in your
program.
 It defines several classes, including ifstream, ofstream, and fstream.
These classes are derived from istream, ostream, and iostream,
respectively.
 istream, ostream, and iostream are derived from ios, so ifstream,
ofstream, and fstream also have access to all operations defined by ios.
 Another class used by the file system is filebuf, which provides low-level
facilities to manage a file stream.
Opening and Closing a File
 In C++, you open a file by linking it to a stream.
 Before you can open a file, you must first obtain a stream. There are three
types of streams: input, output, and input/output.

ifstream in; // input stream to read from file

ofstream out; // output stream to write in file
fstream in_out; // input and output stream to read and write from/to files
Opening and Closing a File
 Once you have created a stream, one way to associate it with a file is by using
open() . This function is a member of each of the three stream classes.
 Prototype for each is as below:

void ifstream::open(const char *filename, ios::openmode mode = ios::in);

void ofstream::open(const char *filename, ios::openmode mode = ios::out |

ios::trunc);

void fstream::open(const char *filename, ios::openmode mode = ios::in | ios::out);

Opening and Closing a File
 You can also check to see if you have successfully opened a file by using the
is_open() function, which is a member of fstream, ifstream, and ofstream.
 It has this prototype:
bool is_open( );
if(!out.is_open()) {
cout << "File is not open.\n";
exit(1);
}
 To close a file, use the member function close() . For example, to close the file
linked to a stream called out use this statement:
out.close();
 The close() function takes no parameters and returns no value.
File Opening mode parameters C++
ios::app Append to end of file

ios::ate go to end of file on opening

ios::binary Opens file in binary mode

ios::in open file for reading only

ios::out open file for writing only

ios::trunc delete the contents of the file if it exist

Reading and Writing Text Files
Writing in File:
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
ofstream out("STUDENT.txt"); // output stream
if(!out) {
cout << "Cannot open Student file.\n";
return 1;
}
out << "Abhay " << 20 << endl;
out << "Amit " << 24 << endl;
out << "Mukesh " << 23 << endl;
out << "Pankaj " << 22 << endl;
out.close();
return 0;
}
Reading and Writing Text Files
Reading from File:
ifstream in("STUDENT.txt"); // input stream
if(!in) {
cout << "Cannot open Student file.\n";
return 1;
}
string name;
int age;
while(in)
{
in >> name >> age;
if(in)
cout << name << " " << age <<endl;

}
in.close();
More I/O Functions
 put() and get() function:The function put() writes a single character to the
associated stream. Similarly, the function get() reads a single character form
the associated stream.
Prototypes:
istream &get(char &ch);
ostream &put(char ch);
 write() and read() function: write() and read() functions write and read
blocks of binary data to/from files.
Prototypes:
istream &read(char *buf, streamsize num);
ostream &write(const char *buf, streamsize num);
 Random Access:
istream &seekg(off_type offset, seekdir origin);
ostream &seekp(off_type offset, seekdir origin);
Here origin can be any of ios::beg ,ios::cur or ios::end.