Binary Tree File I/O

[bluechimera]

Hello,
I am trying to get the data in my binary tree to write to a file "officeEquipment.dat"
I am not certain how to go about this. I have done file I/O before with

file.write(reinterpret_cast<const char *>(&whatever), sizeof(WHATEVER));
 

but I am not exactly sure what somehting like that really does.

I am currently trying to get the following to write, but I'm not sure what I am doing wrong:

file.write(reinterpret_cast<const char *>(&rt_ptr), sizeof(binary_tree_node<string>));
 

where rt_ptr is the root pointer and binary_tree_node<string> is a templatized class... in other words...
binary_tree_node<string>* rt_ptr;

if you have enough info... could someone please give me an example of how I would get this to write to the file I have created?
I have been messing with this program for 2 days :(
Thank you!

[weaknessforcats]

I recommend you write only the data from the nodes to disk. And I recommend you do that in a fashion that the easily readable. Like, one data value per record so the data can be different sizes (maybe it's a string).

Then on the playback you just read records and each record is inserted into the tree being built to contain the disc data.

This will allow writing in text format which means you can create disc files of data values (using Notepad or vi or some such) and read them into trees in your program.