Reading line from text file and putting the strings into a vector?

user977154 picture user977154 · Dec 3, 2011 · Viewed 88.4k times · Source

I am trying to read each line of a textfile which each line contains one word and put those words into a vector. How would i go about doing that?

This is my new code: I think there is still something wrong with it.

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
    std::string line;
    vector<string> DataArray;
    vector<string> QueryArray;
    ifstream myfile("OHenry.txt");
    ifstream qfile("queries.txt");

    if(!myfile) //Always test the file open.
    {
        cout<<"Error opening output file"<<endl;
        system("pause");
        return -1;
    }
    while (std::getline(qfile, line))
    {
        QueryArray.push_back(line);
    }
    if(!qfile) //Always test the file open.
    {
        cout<<"Error opening output file"<<endl;
        system("pause");
        return -1;
    }

    while (std::getline(qfile, line))
    {
        QueryArray.push_back(line);
    }

    cout<<QueryArray[0]<<endl;
    cout<<DataArray[0]<<endl;

}

Answer

Robᵩ picture Robᵩ · Dec 3, 2011

@FailedDev did, indeed, list the simplest form. As an alternative, here is how I often code that loop:

std::vector<std::string> myLines;
std::copy(std::istream_iterator<std::string>(myfile),
          std::istream_iterator<std::string>(),
          std::back_inserter(myLines));

The entire program might look like this:

// Avoid "using namespace std;" at all costs. Prefer typing out "std::"
// in front of each identifier, but "using std::NAME" isn't (very) dangerous.
#include <iostream>
using std::cout;
using std::cin;
#include <fstream>
using std::ifstream;
#include <string>
using std::string;
#include <vector>
using std::vector;
#include <iterator>
using std::istream_iterator;
#include <algorithm>
using std::copy;

int main()
{

    // Store the words from the two files into these two vectors
    vector<string> DataArray;
    vector<string> QueryArray;

    // Create two input streams, opening the named files in the process.
    // You only need to check for failure if you want to distinguish
    // between "no file" and "empty file". In this example, the two
    // situations are equivalent.
    ifstream myfile("OHenry.txt"); 
    ifstream qfile("queries.txt");

    // std::copy(InputIt first, InputIt last, OutputIt out) copies all
    //   of the data in the range [first, last) to the output iterator "out"
    // istream_iterator() is an input iterator that reads items from the
    //   named file stream
    // back_inserter() returns an interator that performs "push_back"
    //   on the named vector.
    copy(istream_iterator<string>(myfile),
         istream_iterator<string>(),
         back_inserter(DataArray));
    copy(istream_iterator<string>(qfile),
         istream_iterator<string>(),
         back_inserter(QueryArray));

    try {
        // use ".at()" and catch the resulting exception if there is any
        // chance that the index is bogus. Since we are reading external files,
        // there is every chance that the index is bogus.
        cout<<QueryArray.at(20)<<"\n";
        cout<<DataArray.at(12)<<"\n";
    } catch(...) {
        // deal with error here. Maybe:
        //   the input file doesn't exist
        //   the ifstream creation failed for some other reason
        //   the string reads didn't work
        cout << "Data Unavailable\n";
    }
}