using fstream to read every character including spaces and newline

c++ newline spaces fstream
Tomek picture Tomek · Sep 22, 2008 · Viewed 73.7k times · Source

I wanted to use fstream to read a txt file.

I am using inFile >> characterToConvert, but the problem is that this omits any spaces and newline.

I am writing an encryption program so I need to include the spaces and newlines.

What would be the proper way to go about accomplishing this?

Answer

Jason Etheridge picture Jason Etheridge · Sep 22, 2008

Probably the best way is to read the entire file's contents into a string, which can be done very easily using ifstream's rdbuf() method:

std::ifstream in("myfile");

std::stringstream buffer;
buffer << in.rdbuf();

std::string contents(buffer.str());

You can then use regular string manipulation now that you've got everything from the file.

While Tomek was asking about reading a text file, the same approach will work for reading binary data, though the std::ios::binary flag needs to be provided when creating the input file stream.

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