INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING

TECHNIQUE

STRING FUNCTIONS AND FILE PROCESSING

By

DATIN NURAZLINA MD SANUSI

[email protected]
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 Learning Outcomes
• At the end of this class, you should be able to
– use functions in cctype, cstring and
string classes to manipulate character and
string
– explain the use of files in storing data
– describe the important components needed in
writing C++ code for file processing
 C-String Style Character String
• C-string: sequence of characters stored in
adjacent memory locations and terminated by
NULL character
• The C-string
"Hi there!"
would be stored in memory as shown:
• Following is the memory presentation of above
defined string in C++:

H i t h e r e ! \0

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 Character Testing
• require cctype header file

Character Classification Functions

FUNCTION MEANING
isalpha true if arg. is a letter, false otherwise
isalnum true if arg. is a letter or digit, false otherwise
isdigit true if arg. is a digit 0-9, false otherwise
islower true if arg. is lowercase letter, false otherwise
isprint true if arg. is a printable character, false otherwise
ispunct true if arg. is a punctuation character, false otherwise
isupper true if arg. is an uppercase letter, false otherwise
isspace true if arg. is a whitespace character, false otherwise

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Character Conversion Functions
Two functions that convert between letter cases:

tolower Convert uppercase letter to

lowercase
toupper Convert lowercase letter to
uppercase

Functions:
toupper: if char argument is lowercase letter, return uppercase
equivalent; otherwise, return input unchanged

char ch1 = 'H';

char ch2 = 'e';
char ch3 = '!';
cout << toupper(ch1); // displays 'H'
cout << toupper(ch2); // displays 'E'
cout << toupper(ch3); // displays '!'
 Character Conversion Functions
1 /* tolower example */
2 #include <stdio.h>
3 #include <ctype.h>
4 int main ()
5 {
6 int i=0;
7 char str[]="Test String.\n";
8 char c;
9 while (str[i])
10 {
11 c=str[i];
12 putchar (tolower(c));
13 i++;
14 }
15 return 0;
16 }

Output:
test string.
 Library Functions for Working with C-
Strings
• Require the cstring header file
Functions:
– strcat(slocation, sstate): appends
str2 to the end of str1
char location[SIZE] = "Missoula, ";
char state[3] = "MT";
strcat(location, state);
// location now has "Missoula, MT"

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 Other Definitions of C++ strings

Definition Meaning
string name; defines an empty string object
string myname("Chris"); defines a string and initializes it
string yourname(myname); defines a string and initializes it
string aname(myname, 3); defines a string and initializes it with first 3
characters of myname

string verb(myname,3,2); defines a string and initializes it with 2

characters from myname starting at position
3

string noname('A', 5); defines string and initializes it to 5 'A's

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 Using Files for Data Storage
• Can use files instead of keyboard, monitor
screen for program input, output
• Allows data to be retained between program
runs
• Steps:
– Open the file
– Use the file (read from, write to, or both)
– Close the file

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 Files: What is Needed
• Use fstream header file for file access
• File stream types:
ifstream for input from a file
ofstream for output to a file
fstream for input from or output to a file
• Define file stream objects:
ifstream infile;
ofstream outfile;

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 Opening Files
• Create a link between file name (outside the program) and
file stream object (inside the program)
• Use the open member function:
infile.open("inventory.dat");
outfile.open("report.txt");
• Filename may include drive, path info.
• Output file will be created if necessary; existing file will be
erased first
• Input file must exist for open to work

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 Testing for File Open Errors
• Can test a file stream object to detect if an open
operation failed:
infile.open("test.txt");
if (!infile)
{
cout << "File open failure!";
}
• Can also use the fail member function

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 Closing Files
• Use the close member function:
infile.close();
outfile.close();
• Don’t wait for operating system to close files
at program end:
– may be limit on number of open files
– may be buffered output data waiting to send to
file

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 Examples of Questions
• What is the output of the following code?
char str1[25] = "Try your best!";
char str2[25] = "Good Luck...";
int length;
cout << str1 << str2 << endl;
strncpy(str2, str1,13);
cout << str1 << str2 << endl;
strupr(str2);
cout << str2 << endl;
length = strlen(str2);
cout << "The length of this sentence is ";
cout << length << "\n";
Answers
 Examples of Questions
int number1 = 3, number2 = 8, number3 = 9;
fstream outFile("addTable.txt", ios::out);
number1 = number1 + number2;
outFile << number1;
number2 = number2 + number3;
outFile << setw(5) << number2;
number3 = number2 + number1;
outFile << "\n" << number3;
outFile.close();
cout << "Number is saved in file addTable.txt\n";
i) What will be displayed when the code is executed?
ii) What is the content of addTable file?
 Answers
• i) Number is saved in addTable.txt
• ii)