Re: Reading last 'n' lines from a ifstream

From:
Carl Barron <cbarron413@adelphia.net>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:44:00 CST
Message-ID:
<190220082155205832%cbarron413@adelphia.net>
In article
<47ad2772-f5c4-45b1-9ca2-32075ae41610@s19g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
<anubhav.saxena@wipro.com> wrote:

Hi,

I would like to know of a simple STL way of reading last n lines from
a file. I know about the istream_iterator but could not find any thing
that would read it from the end.


  There is no provided iterator in standard libraray and
std::istream_iterator<std::string> will read by 'words' not 'lines'.
You need a custom iterator that reads lines not words and a custom
algorithm that keeps the last n [or less] lines read from the stream.

problem 2: last_n algorithm , is easy if we use a queue of some kind
to hold the last n or fewer lines read.

problem 1: an input iterator that reads lines not words from an istream.
 Easiest to get right if boost is available is to write the iterator
deriving it from boost::iterator_facade<...>. Something like:
// line iterator.hpp
#ifndef LINE_ITERATOR_HPP_INCLUDED
#define LINE_ITERATOR_HPP_INCLUDED
#include <boost/iterator/iterator_facade.hpp>
#include <string>
#include <istream>

class line_iterator:public boost::iterator_facade
<
   line_iterator,
   std::string,
   std::input_iterator_tag

{
   friend class boost::iterator_core_access;
   std::istream *p_is;
   mutable std::string line;
   char delim;
   typename boost::iterator_facade
   <
      line_iterator,
      std::string,
      std::input_iterator_tag
   >::reference dereference()const {return line;}
   void increment()
   {
      if(p_is && !std::getline(*p_is,line,delim))
         p_is = 0;
   }
   bool equal (const line_iterator &rhs) const
   {
      return p_is == rhs.p_is;
   }
public:
   line_iterator():p_is(0){}
   line_iterator(std::istream &is,char d)
      :p_is(&is),delim(d){}
   char delimiter() const {return delim;}
   void delimiter(char x) {delim = x;}
};
#endif
// end line_iterator.hpp
// begin last_n.hpp
#ifndef LAST_N_HPP_INCLUDED
#define LAST_N_HPP_INCLUDED
#include <iterator>

template <class In,class C>
void last_n(In begin,In end,int n,C &buffer,std::input_iterator_tag)
{
   while(begin != end && n--)
   {
      buffer.push_back(*begin);
      ++begin;
   }
   while(begin !=end)
   {
      buffer.pop_front();
      buffer.push_back(*begin);
      ++begin;
   }
}

template <class BI,class C>
void last_n(BI begin,BI end,int n,C &buffer,
std::bidirectional_iterator_tag)
{
   while(begin != end && n--)
   {
      buffer.push_front(*--end);
   }
}
/*
   Iter is an an STL compatible iterator,
   C is a container of string with push_back,push_front
      and pop_front()..
   best of above chosen for category of given iterator.
*/

template <class Iter,class C>
void last_n(Iter begin,Iter end,int n,C &buffer)
{
   typedef typename std::iterator_traits<Iter>::iterator_category Cat;
   last_n(begin,end,n,buffer,Cat());
}

#endif
// end last_n.hpp

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