Re: copy std::cin to a ifstream

From:
John Harrison <john_andronicus@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Sat, 23 Jun 2007 07:55:43 GMT
Message-ID:
<3m4fi.3169$ri2.41@newsfe5-win.ntli.net>
John Harrison wrote:

Ralf Goertz wrote:

Hi,

consider the following program

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>

using namespace std;

int main(int argc, char *argv[]){
   if (argc<2) exit(1);
   ifstream infile;
   if (argv[1]!="-")
       infile.open(argv[1]);
     else
       infile=cin; //doesn't compile
   // read from infile
   return 0;
}

In c I can just assign stdin to a FILE*. What would be the c++ way of
doing this? Do I have to use a pointer here, too? I could use
infile.open("/dev/stdin") but that's probably not portable.

Thanks,

Ralf


I'd use a pointer

istream* input;
ifstream infile;
if (argv[1]!="-")
{
    infile.open(argv[1]);
    input = &infile;
}
else
{
    input = &cin;
}
// read from *input

john


If you like you could use a reference (untested code)

ifstream infile;
istream& input = pick_input(infile, argv);

istream& pick_input(char** argv, ifstream& infile)
{
    if (argv[1]!="-")
    {
        infile.open(argv[1]);
        return infile;
    }
    else
    {
        return cin;
    }
}

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