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FUNDAMENTALS OF

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PROGRAMMING IN C++
FILE OPERATIONS
IO-operations 2
 Input can be taken from the keyboard or from a file.
 It delivered to your program via a C++ construct known as a stream.
 Similarly, output can be sent to the screen or to a file.
 and output from your program is delivered to the output device via a stream.
 C++ standard IO is based on three classes:
 the istream class for input,
 the ostream class for output,
 and the iostream class for input/output.
 C++ refers to files as streams since it considers them a stream of bytes.
Streams 3
 A stream is a flow of characters (or other kind of data).
 If the flow is into your program, the stream is called an input stream.
 If the flow is out of your program, the stream is called an output stream.
 Example: cin is an input stream and cout is an output stream objects defined in iostream
library.
Why file? 4
• The keyboard input and screen output support temporary data.
• The data will be erased (or lost) when the program ends.
• Files provide you with a way to store data permanently.
• The content of a file will remain after the program has finished running.
• File IO supports:
• large volume of data,
• over and over again use of input data by many programs without the need to type in the data
separately for each program.
• When your program :
• takes input from a file, it is said to be reading from the file.
• sends output to a file, it is said to be writing to the file.
File IO 5
• In C++, a stream is a special kind of variable known as an object.
• Stream objects handles inputs to and outputs from a program whatever the source and destination
will be.

• If you want to use a stream to get input from a file (or give output to a file), you must
declare the stream and you must connect the stream to the file.
Declaring streams 6
• The streams cin and cout are already declared for you, but if you want a stream to connect
to a file,
• Stream must be declare just as you would declare any other variable.
• The type for input-file stream variables is named ifstream (for “input-file stream”).
• Ifstream objects used for opening file to read.
• The type for output-file stream variables is named ofstream (for “output-file stream”).
• Ofstream objects used for opening file to write.
• The type for both input and output file stream variable is named fstream (for “file stream”).
• Fstream objects used for opening file to read from and write to a file at the same time.
… 7
 Example:
ifstream readfile;
 // declaring an input-file stream object called readfile to open file to read input data into our program.

ofstream writefile;
 // declaring an output-file stream object called writefile to open file to write output data from our
program.
 The types ifstream and ofstream are defined in the library with the header file fstream,
 So to use them we must include #include<fstream> directive in the program,
 Note after declaring the stream variables(objects), we must connect them to the actual file
from our disk.
Connecting streams to a file 8
• Stream variables, such as readfile and writefile declared earlier, must each be connected to
a file.
• This is called opening the file and is done with a function named open.
• For example, suppose you want the input/output stream connected to the file named
myfile.txt.
• The connection can be done using open function,
fstream rwfile; // declaration of input-file stream.
rwfile.open(“myfile.txt”); // connecting a stream to the actual file.
• Or a constructor
fstream rwfile(“myfile.txt”); // the connection done in one line.
Opening file to read 9
• We must use ifstream object to open file as an input to( to read data for) the program.
• When we open a file using ifstream object (to read):
• The compiler will cause an error if the file we mentioned doesn’t exist in place.

ifstream readfile; or ifstream readfile (“myfile.txt”);

• After opening readfile.open(“myfile.txt”);
a file in such a manner:
• We can use >> operator to extract data into the program as a word,
• or we can just extract character by character using get() function.
… 10
readfile>>string_variable;
or char_variable =
readfile.get();
• These techniques helps us to extract data from the ifstream stream object
• word by word
• or character by character respectively.
• Note: reading a file out of bound will cause an error,
• therefore we should only read until the end of file.
• To make sure the end of file use:

• if(!readfile.eof())
Opening file to write 11
• We must use ofstream object to open file to write data (output) from the program
permanently.
• When we open a file using ofstream object (to write):
• The compiler will automatically create it, if it doesn’t exist in place.
• Or if the file exists it automatically starts overwriting it unless opened in append mode.

ofstream writefile; or writefile readfile (“myfile.txt”,

writefile.open(“myfile.txt”, AM); AM);
• After opening a file in such a manner:
• We can use << operator to write data onto the file as a string,
• or we can just write character by character using put() function.
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writefile<<string_variable;
or
writefile.put(char_variable);
• These techniques helps us to write data on the file
• As a string at a time
• or character respectively.
• Every file should be closed when your program is finished getting input from the file or
sending output to the file.
• Closing a file disconnects the stream from the file. A file is closed with a call to the function
close.

• writefile.close() or readfile.close()
File Pointers
 Each file has two pointers
 one is called input pointer
 and second is output pointer.
 The input pointer is called get pointer and the output pointer is called put pointer.
 When input and output operation take places, the appropriate pointer is automatically set
according to the access mode.
 For example:
 when we open a file in reading mode, file pointer is automatically set to the start of the file.
 when we open a file in append mode, the file pointer is automatically set to the end of file
…
 In C++ there are some manipulators by which we can control the movement of the pointer. The
available manipulators are:
 seekg() tellp(): this gives the current position of put
 seekp() pointer (output pointer) eg. ofstream fileout;
fileout.open(“c:\\
 tellg()
test.txt”,ios::app);
 tellp() int length = fileout.tellp();
 seekg(): this moves get pointer i.e. input pointer to a specified location.
 For e.g. infile.seekg(5); move the file pointer to the byte number 5 from starting point.
 seekp(): this move put pointer (output pointer) to a specified location.
 For example: outfile.seekp(5);
 tellg(): this gives the current position of get pointer (input pointer)
Special operations in a File 15
 put() - It writes a single character to file.

 get() - It reads a single character from file.

 Note: For seekp and seekg three reference points are passed:
 ios::beg - beginning of the file
 ios::cur - current position in the file
 ios::end - end of the file
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Tools for stream

IO
Output formatting tools 17
 The layout of a program’s output is called the format of the output.
 In C++ you can control the format with commands that determine such details as:
 the number of spaces between items
 and the number of digits after the decimal point.
 Example: for formatting decimal numbers
 cout.precision(2);
 // the function precision associated to object cout limits the number of digits to
be displayed after the decimal point.
 cout<<4.85601<<endl; // 4.85 will be displayed
 The output formatting tools can be used with any stream object in C++.
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 cout.setf() and cout.unsetf() functions:
 setf() is an abbreviation for set flags.
 A flag is an instruction to do something in one of two possible ways.
 If a flag is given as an argument to setf, then the flag tells the computer to write output to that stream in
some specific way.

 Example:
 cout.setf(ios::scientific);
 cout.precision(2);
 // this makes decimal numbers to be displayed in e-notations.
 cout<<0.0004563<<":"<<endl; // 4.56e-004:
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Predefined character functions 21
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