C++ File Handling

As we know, at the time of execution, every program comes in main memory to execute. Main
memory is volatile and the data would be lost once the program is terminated. If we need the
same data again, we have to store the data in a file on the disk. A file is sequential stream of
bytes ending with an end-of-file marker.

Types of file supported by C++:

 Text Files
 Binary Files

Difference between text file and binary file

 Text file is human readable because everything is stored in terms of text. In binary file
everything is written in terms of 0 and 1, therefore binary file is not human readable.
 A newline(\n) character is converted into the carriage return-linefeed combination before
being written to the disk. In binary file, these conversions will not take place.
 In text file, a special character, whose ASCII value is 26, is inserted after the last
character in the file to mark the end of file. There is no such special character present in
the binary mode files to mark the end of file.
 In text file, the text and characters are stored one character per byte. For example, the
integer value 23718 will occupy 2 bytes in memory but it will occupy 5 bytes in text file.
In binary file, the integer value 23718 will occupy 2 bytes in memory as well as in file.

The fstream.h Header File

C++'s standard library called fstream, defines the following classes to support file handling.

 ofstream class : Provides methods for writing data into file. Such as, open(), put(),
write(), seekp(), tellp(), close(), etc.
 ifstream class : Provides methods for reading data from file. Such as, open(),get(),
read(), seekg(), tellg(), close(), etc.
 fstream class : Provides methods for both writing and reading data from file. The
fstream class includes all the methods of ifstream and ofstream class.

Opening a file using open() member function

The open() function takes file-name argument. The purpose of opening the file i.e, whether for
reading or writing, depends on the object associated with open() function.

Example of opening file

ofstream fout;
 fout.open("filename"); // Open file for writing

ifstream fin;
fin.open("filename"); // Open file for reading

fstream f;
f.open("filename",mode);

// Using fstream, we can do both read and write, therefore,

// mode specifies the purpose for which the file is opened.

File Opening Modes

Mode Purpose

ios::in Open a text file for reading.

ios::out Open a text file for writing. If it doesn't exist, it will be created.

ios::ate Open a file and move the pointer at the end-of-file.

Open a text file for appending. Data will be added at the end of the existing file. If
ios::app
file doesnt exist, it will be created.

ios::binary Open file in a binary mode.

ios::nocreate The file must already exist. If file doesn't exist, it will not create new file.

ios::trunc If the file already exists, all the data will lost.

Reading and Writing into File

We can read data from file and write data to file in four ways.

 Reading or writing characters using get() and put() member functions.

C++ put() function

The put() function is member of ofstream class. It is used to write singal character into file.

Syntax of put() function

ofstream obj;
obj.put(char ch);
Example of put() function

#include<fstream.h>
#include<conio.h>

void main()
{
ofstream fout;
char ch;

fout.open("demo.txt"); //Statement 1

do
//Statement 2
{

cin.get(ch);
fout.put(ch);

}while(ch!=EOF);

fout.close();

cout<<"\nData written successfully...";

Output :

Hello friends, my name is kumar.^Z

Data written successfully...

In the above example, statement 1 will create a file named demo.txt in write mode. Statement 2
is do-while loop, which take characters from user and write the character to the file, until user
press the ctrl+z to exit from the loop.

C++ get() function

The get() function is member of ifstream class. It is used to read character form the file.

Syntax of get() function

ifstream obj;
obj.get(char &ch);

The get() function reads a single character from the file and puts that value in ch.

Example of get() function

 #include<fstream.h>
#include<conio.h>

void main()
{
ifstream fin;
char ch;

fin.open("demo.txt"); //Statement 1

cout<<"\nData in file...";

while(!fin.eof()) //Statement 2
{
fin.get(ch);
cout<<ch;
}

fin.close();

Output :

Data in file...
Hello friends, my name is kumar.

In the above example, Statement 1 will open an existing file demo.txt in read mode and
statement 2 will read all the characters one by one upto EOF(end-of-file) reached. The eof()
function is member of ifsream class. It returns zero, if end-of-file reached and returns non-zero
value, if any character found.

2. Reading or writing formatted I/O using insertion operator ( << ) and extraction
operator ( >> ).

C++ Insertion operator ( << )

Insertion operator ( << ) is similar to fprintf() function available in C language. It is used in
situation where we need to write characters, strings and integers in a single file or we can say, it
is used to write mixed type in the file.

Syntax of Insertion operator ( << )

ofstream obj;
obj << variable-list;
Example of Insertion operator ( << )

variable-list includes different types of values.

#include<fstream.h>
#include<conio.h>

void main()
{
ofstream fout;

int roll;
char name[25];
float marks;

char ch;

fout.open("demo.txt"); //Statement 1

do
{
cout<<"\n\nEnter Roll : ";
cin>>roll;

cout<<"\nEnter Name : ";

cin>>name;

cout<<"\nEnter Marks : ";

cin>>marks;

fout << roll << " " << name << " " << marks << " ";
//Statement 2

cout<<"\n\nDo you want to add another data (y/n) : ";

ch = getche();

}while(ch=='y' || ch=='Y');

cout<<"\nData written successfully...";

fout.close();
}

Output :

Enter Roll : 1
Enter Name : Kumar
Enter Marks : 78.53

Do you want to add another data (y/n) : y

Enter Roll : 2
Enter Name : Sumit
Enter Marks : 89.62
 Do you want to add another data (y/n) : n

Data written successfully...

In the above example, Statement 1 will open an existing file demo.txt in write mode and
statement 2 will write all the data in file.

Note : We must insert blank space in file to separate each values, as shown in statement 2,
because extraction operator terminates at blank space and consider next value as new value.

C++ Extraction operator ( >> )

The extraction operator (>>) is similar to fscanf() function available in C language. It is used to
read mixed type form the file.

Syntax of Extraction operator ( >> )

ifstream obj;
obj >> variable-list;

Example of Extraction operator ( >> )

#include<fstream.h>
#include<conio.h>

void main()
{
ifstream fin;

int roll;
char name[25];
float marks;

char ch;

fin.open("demo.txt"); //Statement 1

cout<<"\n\tData in file...\n";

while(fin>>roll>>name>>marks) //Statement 2
{

cout << "\n\t" << roll << "\t" << name << "\t" << marks;
}

fin.close();
}
 Output :

Data in file...

1 Kumar 78.53
2 Sumit 89.62

In the above example, Statement 1 will open an existing file demo.txt in read mode and
statement 2 will read all the data upto EOF(end-of-file) reached.

 Reading or writing object using read() and write() member functions.

C++ write() function

The write() function is used to write object or record (sequence of bytes) to the file. A record
may be an array, structure or class.

Syntax of write() function

fstream fout;
fout.write( (char *) &obj, sizeof(obj) );

The write() function takes two arguments.

&obj : Initial byte of an object stored in memory.
sizeof(obj) : size of object represents the total number of bytes to be written from initial byte.

Example of write() function

#include<fstream.h>
#include<conio.h>

class Student
{

int roll;
char name[25];
float marks;

void getdata()
{
cout<<"\n\nEnter Roll : ";
cin>>roll;

cout<<"\nEnter Name : ";

cin>>name;
 cout<<"\nEnter Marks : ";
cin>>marks;
}

public:

void AddRecord()
{

fstream f;
Student Stu;

f.open("Student.dat",ios::app|ios::binary);

Stu.getdata();

f.write( (char *) &Stu, sizeof(Stu) );

f.close();

}
};

void main()
{

Student S;
char ch='n';

do
{
S.AddRecord();

cout<<"\n\nDo you want to add another data (y/n) : ";

ch = getche();

} while(ch=='y' || ch=='Y');

cout<<"\nData written successfully...";

}

Output :

Enter Roll : 1
Enter Name : Ashish
Enter Marks : 78.53

Do you want to add another data (y/n) : y

Enter Roll : 2
Enter Name : Kaushal
Enter Marks : 72.65

Do you want to add another data (y/n) : y

Enter Roll : 3
 Enter Name : Vishwas
Enter Marks : 82.65

Do you want to add another data (y/n) : n

Data written successfully...

C++ read() function

The read() function is used to read object (sequence of bytes) to the file.

Syntax of read() function

fstream fin;
fin.read( (char *) &obj, sizeof(obj) );

The read() function takes two arguments.

&obj : Initial byte of an object stored in file.
sizeof(obj) : size of object represents the total number of bytes to be read from initial byte.

The read() function returns NULL if no data read.

Example of read() function

#include<fstream.h>
#include<conio.h>

class Student
{

int roll;
char name[25];
float marks;

void putdata()
{

cout<<"\n\t"<<roll<<"\t"<<name<<"\t"<<marks;

public:

void Display()
{

fstream f;
Student Stu;
 f.open("Student.dat",ios::in|ios::binary);

cout<<"\n\tRoll\tName\tMarks\n";

while( (f.read((char*)&Stu,sizeof(Stu))) != NULL )

Stu.putdata();

f.close();
}
};

void main()
{

Student S;

S.Display();
}

Output :

Roll Name Marks

1 Ashish 78.53
2 Kaushal 72.65
3 Vishwas 82.65