Date: 2014oct7 Language: C++ Level: Beginner Q. How can I read a text file using ifstream? A. There are many examples of this. But this is how I like to do it. I don't import the std namespace. I call is_open() right after open(), which is void. I use a fixed size buffer rather than a string for speed.

#include <iostream> #include <fstream> bool readfile(const char *filename) { char buf[5 * 1024]; std::ifstream myfile; myfile.open(filename, std::ifstream::in); if (!myfile.is_open()) { cerr << "Could not open the file"; return false; } for (;;) { if (!myfile.getline(buf, sizeof(buf))) { // Its eof, possibly do something break; } cout << buf; cout << '\n'; } myfile.close(); return true; } int main () { readfile("example.txt"); }