Reading unformatted text from stdin

[Lionel B]

Greetings,

I need to read (unformatted text) from stdin up to EOF into a char
buffer; of course I cannot allocate my buffer until I know how much
text is available, and I do not know how much text is available until I
have read it... which seems to imply that multiple reads of the input
stream will be inevitable.

Now I can correctly find the number of characters available by:
|
| #include <iostream>
|
| std::cin.ignore (std::numeric_l imits<int>::max ());
| const int num_chars = std::cin.gcount ();
|
Then I would like to do:
|
| char* const text = new char[num_chars+1];
| std::cin.read(t ext,num_chars);
| text[num_chars]='\0';
|
but the read() won't work because, as I understand it, ignore() has (as
its name implies) `thrown away' all characters in the stream...!

I am sure this must be a stock situation, and wonder if there is an
(efficient, elegant) stock way of approaching it.
Any tips appreciated,

--
Lionel B

[Mike Wahler]

"Lionel B" <go****@lionelb .com> wrote in message
news:11******** **************@ z14g2000cwz.goo glegroups.com.. .

Greetings,

I need to read (unformatted text) from stdin up to EOF into a char
buffer; of course I cannot allocate my buffer until I know how much
text is available, and I do not know how much text is available until I
have read it... which seems to imply that multiple reads of the input
stream will be inevitable.

Now I can correctly find the number of characters available by:
|
| #include <iostream>
|
| std::cin.ignore (std::numeric_l imits<int>::max ());
| const int num_chars = std::cin.gcount ();
|
Then I would like to do:
|
| char* const text = new char[num_chars+1];
| std::cin.read(t ext,num_chars);
| text[num_chars]='\0';
|
but the read() won't work because, as I understand it, ignore() has (as
its name implies) `thrown away' all characters in the stream...!

I am sure this must be a stock situation, and wonder if there is an
(efficient, elegant) stock way of approaching it.
Any tips appreciated,

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

int main()
{
std::cout << "Enter text: ";
std::string line;
std::getline(st d::cin, line);

if(!line.empty( ))
{
char * const text = new char[line.size() + 1];
std::copy(line. begin(), line.end(), text);
text[line.size()] = 0;
std::cout << text << '\n';
delete[] text;
}

return 0;
}

-Mike

[Karl Heinz Buchegger]

Lionel B wrote:

Greetings,

I need to read (unformatted text) from stdin up to EOF into a char
buffer; of course I cannot allocate my buffer until I know how much
text is available, and I do not know how much text is available until I
have read it... which seems to imply that multiple reads of the input
stream will be inevitable.

Now I can correctly find the number of characters available by:
|
| #include <iostream>
|
| std::cin.ignore (std::numeric_l imits<int>::max ());
| const int num_chars = std::cin.gcount ();
|
Then I would like to do:
|
| char* const text = new char[num_chars+1];
| std::cin.read(t ext,num_chars);
| text[num_chars]='\0';
|
but the read() won't work because, as I understand it, ignore() has (as
its name implies) `thrown away' all characters in the stream...!
I don't understand.
Why did you do ignore() at the stream?
What should be the purpose of it?

I am sure this must be a stock situation, and wonder if there is an
(efficient, elegant) stock way of approaching it.
Any tips appreciated,

Well the tip is: If you want to read then it is unwise to first
throw away everything you want to read :-)

Besides:
Did you know that std::string can hold a very long text?
Did you know that there is a function getline for strings?
Did you know that you can tell getline() what it should use as
delimiter for 'lines'?

--
Karl Heinz Buchegger
kb******@gascad .at

[Dietmar Kuehl]

Lionel B wrote:

I need to read (unformatted text) from stdin up to EOF into a char
buffer;

What's wrong with this?

| std::ifstream in("some file", std::ios_base:: binary);
| std::ostringstr eam tmp;
| tmp << in.rdbuf();
| std::string const& contents = tmp.str();

.... or:

| std::ifstream in("some file",
std::ios_base:: binary);
| std::istreambuf _iterator<char> beg(in), end;
| std::string contents(beg, end);

Actually, I like the latter better but it is probably considerably
slower than the first alternative on most implementations .
--
<mailto:di***** ******@yahoo.co m> <http://www.dietmar-kuehl.de/>
<http://www.contendix.c om> - Software Development & Consulting

[Lionel B]

Mike Wahler wrote:

"Lionel B" <go****@lionelb .com> wrote in message
news:11******** **************@ z14g2000cwz.goo glegroups.com.. .

Greetings,

I need to read (unformatted text) from stdin up to EOF into a
char buffer; of course I cannot allocate my buffer until I know
how much text is available, and I do not know how much text is
available until I have read it... which seems to imply that
multiple reads of the input stream will be inevitable.

/.../

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

int main()
{
std::cout << "Enter text: ";
std::string line;
std::getline(st d::cin, line);

I guess that might work, but my input might contain '\n' chars (i.e.
the default eol chars), so I'd have to give getline() an eol char that
would never actually occur (I think '\0' would probably do it). Shall
try it.

Cheers,

--
Lionel B

[Mike Wahler]

"Lionel B" <go****@lionelb .com> wrote in message
news:11******** **************@ c13g2000cwb.goo glegroups.com.. .

Mike Wahler wrote:

"Lionel B" <go****@lionelb .com> wrote in message
news:11******** **************@ z14g2000cwz.goo glegroups.com.. .

Greetings,

I need to read (unformatted text) from stdin up to EOF into a
char buffer; of course I cannot allocate my buffer until I know
how much text is available, and I do not know how much text is
available until I have read it... which seems to imply that
multiple reads of the input stream will be inevitable.

/.../
#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

int main()
{
std::cout << "Enter text: ";
std::string line;
std::getline(st d::cin, line);

I guess that might work, but my input might contain '\n' chars (i.e.
the default eol chars),

With the above code, not possible.
so I'd have to give getline() an eol char that
The default 'termination' character for 'std::getline() ' is '\n'
(this can be overridden by supplying a different one as the
third argument to 'std::getline() ' ).
would never actually occur (I think '\0' would probably do it).
On many systems, it's not possible to input a '\0' character.
Shall
try it.

Did you try what I wrote?

-Mike

[Lionel B]

Mike Wahler wrote:

"Lionel B" <go****@lionelb .com> wrote in message
news:11******** **************@ c13g2000cwb.goo glegroups.com.. .

Mike Wahler wrote:

"Lionel B" <go****@lionelb .com> wrote in message
news:11******** **************@ z14g2000cwz.goo glegroups.com.. .
> Greetings,
>
> /.../

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

int main()
{
std::cout << "Enter text: ";
std::string line;
std::getline(st d::cin, line);
I guess that might work, but my input might contain
'\n' chars (i.e. the default eol chars),

With the above code, not possible.

so I'd have to give getline() an eol char that

The default 'termination' character for 'std::getline() ' is '\n'
(this can be overridden by supplying a different one as the
third argument to 'std::getline() ' ).

That's exactly what I was thinking of...

would never actually occur (I think '\0' would probably do it).

On many systems, it's not possible to input a '\0' character.

In my case input may be redirected from a file or piped from another
program, so input is not predictable (that's what I meant by
"unformatte d" in my original post). However, a '\0' could be considered
pathological.
Did you try what I wrote?

Yes. As expected, it fails if the input comprises multiple lines (only
the first line is read). However, it works ok if I replace:

std::getline(st d::cin, line);

with:

std::getline(st d::cin, line, '\0');
Cheers,

--
Lionel B

[Lionel B]

Karl Heinz Buchegger wrote:

Lionel B wrote:

Greetings,

I need to read (unformatted text) from stdin up to EOF into a char
buffer; of course I cannot allocate my buffer until I know how much
text is available, and I do not know how much text is available
until I have read it... which seems to imply that multiple reads of
the input stream will be inevitable.

Now I can correctly find the number of characters available by:
|
| #include <iostream>
|
| std::cin.ignore (std::numeric_l imits<int>::max ());
| const int num_chars = std::cin.gcount ();
|
Then I would like to do:
|
| char* const text = new char[num_chars+1];
| std::cin.read(t ext,num_chars);
| text[num_chars]='\0';
|
but the read() won't work because, as I understand it, ignore()
has (as its name implies) `thrown away' all characters in the
stream...!
I don't understand.
Why did you do ignore() at the stream?
What should be the purpose of it?

It was just a first cut attempt at calculating the number of characters
in the stream. The "advantage" is that it will, if invoked as above,
read to the end of the stream and enable gcount() to return the number
of characters correctly. Of course it has a fatal disadvantage...
Well the tip is: If you want to read then it is unwise to first
throw away everything you want to read :-)
.... of course ;-) What I really need is an ignore() that doesn't
ignore; i.e. an unformatted read call which reads to the end of the
stream but doesn't actually extract any chars. As far as I know no
such call exists; I suspect it may be possible to do something along
these lines with peek() in a loop. Might give that a try.
Besides:
Did you know that std::string can hold a very long text?
Did you know that there is a function getline for strings?
Did you know that you can tell getline() what it should use as
delimiter for 'lines'?

Yep. See Mike Wahler's suggestion and my reply.
Regards,

--
Lionel B.

[Lionel B]

Dietmar Kuehl wrote:

Lionel B wrote:

I need to read (unformatted text) from stdin up to EOF into
a char buffer;

What's wrong with this?

| std::ifstream in("some file", std::ios_base:: binary);
| std::ostringstr eam tmp;
| tmp << in.rdbuf();
| std::string const& contents = tmp.str();

Works well. I have also tried:

| const int nchars= std::in.rdbuf()->in_avail()-1;
| char* const text = new char[nchars+1];
| std::in.read(te xt,nchars);
| text[nchars]='\0';

(needs the "-1" in the 1st line; I guess in_avail() counts the EOF too)
which should be pretty efficient, although I am not quite sure whether
in_avail() will always give me what I expect (i.e. the entire input up
to EOF). Seems to work, though.

Cheers,

--
Lionel B

[Lionel B]

Lionel B wrote:

Dietmar Kuehl wrote:

Lionel B wrote:

I need to read (unformatted text) from stdin up to EOF into
a char buffer;

What's wrong with this?

| std::ifstream in("some file", std::ios_base:: binary);
| std::ostringstr eam tmp;
| tmp << in.rdbuf();
| std::string const& contents = tmp.str();

Works well. I have also tried:

| const int nchars= std::in.rdbuf()->in_avail()-1;
| char* const text = new char[nchars+1];
| std::in.read(te xt,nchars);
| text[nchars]='\0';

(needs the "-1" in the 1st line; I guess in_avail() counts the
EOF too) which should be pretty efficient, although I am not quite
sure whether in_avail() will always give me what I expect (i.e. the
entire input up to EOF). Seems to work, though.

Correction: seems to work *sometimes* :-/ If I pipe input in from
another program (my prog reads stdin; i.e. in = cin) then sometimes
in_avail() returns 0... maybe some synching/flushing issue? Or cruddy
implementation of pipes (this is Win2k)? Tricky to replicate exact
conditions under which it doesn't work.
So I'm sticking with Dietmar's first method for now.

--
Lionel B