Coding Inquiry

[Cipher7071]

I'm not sure if this will help or not, but I seem to remember needing to use the chop() function on strings.

(hmmm...can't seem to remember if this was a C++, or a Perl thing?)

[ April 05, 2004, 20:51: Message edited by: Cipher7071 ]

[Ed Kolis]

You do know that all strings in C have to end with a null terminator, don't you?

Wouldn't it be better to use a string class that's available in many a C++ library?

[Fyron]

You miss the point... ofstream objects DO NOT ACCEPT strings. You have to use arrays of characters... this is where the problem lays, in trying to get an appropriate array of characters that are exactly the same as the string from which you are building it...

[Will]

Ummm... Fyron, I think you need to be introduced to the wonders of c_str().

code:

---

#include <string>

#include <fstream>

...

string aString;

...

ofstream outFile(aString.c_str()):

...

---

The c_str() method of string returns a pointer to a null-terminated array of char. Which is what the fstream classes take in their constructors.

[Cipher7071]

I guess I don't quite understand the distinction. Or have I been using too much Pascal?

[Will]

IIRC, chop() is a perl function.

The confusion arises in C/C++ with strings because the name "string" is often used interchangably for the C++ class string, and the "C-style" pointer to an array of characters. And there is quite a bit of difference between an object and a char*

AFAIK, internally, the C++ class string really is just a sort of character array, only with seperate classes for characters to deal with unicode and all that. I remember the first time I saw what "string" actually represents in the debugger, something like three nested templated classes... I was confused for about 10 minutes as to why the function it said was behaving badly was taking that monster as an argument instead of the innocent "string" type I had it taking. But, for most people, as long as you know those functions, you can leave all the nasty bits (such as converting the object to an array of dynamically allocated characters) to the class, and go on your merry way

[Ed Kolis]

Or use C#, where string is a predefined data type