reading text file with MFC

From:
"Dan" <dn@dn-dn.com>
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.vc.mfc
Date:
Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:44:42 +0300
Message-ID:
<eCDHZB$6IHA.1196@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl>
Hi,

This is a newbie question so I hope somebody can help me. I have a text file
with 4 columns delimited by whitespaces. They basically represent a barcode,
a product name, a quantity and a price.

Here is an example:

342432324342 Name of Product 20 12.78

So, I am trying to read this file line by line, extract each column and
process it. Either I am missing something, or this is kind of complicated.
This is my idea of doing this so far:

 CStdioFile stdFile;
 CFileException CFileEx;

 if(!stdFile.Open(_T("C:\\products.txt"), CFile::modeNoTruncate |
CFile::modeRead | CFile::modeCreate, &CFileEx))
 {
  while (stdFile.ReadString(strLine)) // read line by line
  {
   if (strLine.GetLength() == 0)
    continue; // if the line is blank, ignore it and move to the next

   strLine.Trim(); // get rid of leading and trailing whitespaces

   int iPos = strLine.Find(_T(' '), 0); // where is the end of the first
field ?

   if (iPos != -1)
   {
    for (int i = 0; i < iPos; ++i)
     strBarCode += strLine.GetAt(i); // get barcode.. char by char, could I
do it more efficiently?
   }

   while (strLine.GetAt(iPos) == _T(' '))
    ++iPos; // move across all the whitespaces and onto the beginning of the
next field

   int iWhiteSpace = strLine.Find(_T(' '), iPos); // find the next white
space (could be part of the name so must find out later)

   for (int i = 0; i < iWhiteSpace; ++i)
    strName += strLine.GetAt(i); // get all the name or part of the name,
unknown yet

   TCHAR tchr = strLine.GetAt(iWhiteSpace + 1); // trying to find out if
this is a digit or a text so i determine if it is still the name or the
quantity

Question here: What do I do if the product name contains a digit ? Such as
"Product Name 2".. there is no way to distinguish this from the quantity,
unless I probably read the string from the end to the beginning, correct ?
Even then though, there is a problem.. what if the line looks like this:
"342432324342 2 Name of Product 20 12.78", where the name of the
product is "2 Name of Product".. that basically means that even when I go
from the end to the beginning, to correctly retrieve the number of the
barcode I would have to count the characters to the "beginning" from the
first 'number' just to make sure that the first digit is not part of the
name.. right ? Are there any other potential problems that you may see ?

So, maybe this is the solution.. to read the string from the end, to the
beginning. Am I missing something or am I on the right track ? Should I do
it differently to be more efficient or is this OK?
 }

Thanks for your time!

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