Reading Savitch's Problem Solving in C++, std::ifstream::fail
is shown as an example to check if a file has been correctly opened (ifstream
or ofstream
).
I've previously used, as it is what I was first shown, std::ifstream::is_open
to perform the same check.
Which is 'better' practice?
Or in the case that either one is called directly after attempting to open, does it make no practical difference?
std::ifstream::fail
includes checking std::ifstream::is_open
, but std::ifstream::is_open
only checks if it was possible to create a handle to the file.
std::ifstream::fail
can return true, even if std::ifstream::is_open
returns true; they are not the mutually exclusive.
.fail
will check the overall "health" of the stream, which involves things such as checking the stream has currently entered a fail state from trying to read an invalid value, whereas .is_open
will only check if the stream is currently attached to a file, .is_open
doesn't care if the stream is in a fail state, or not.
This certainly depends on what you are trying to accomplish.
Normally it's recommended to rely on the explicit operator bool ()
to see if a stream is ready to be read/written to. This includes checking the overall health of the stream.
Can we make another read/write operation on some_stream
?
if (some_stream) {
// stream is alive and well
} else {
// something is wrong
}
If you explicitly would like to see if some fstream is actually attached to a file, use is_open
, and if you want to check the overall health; use .fail
or rely on the fact that a stream is convertiable to bool
.