Why is ifstream not opening my file?

[Alex T]

This is my code:

#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
 
using namespace std;
 
int main()
{
    ifstream infile;
    infile.open("text1.txt");
 
    if (!infile.is_open())
    {
        return 1; //if cannot find file, all of the time
    }
 
    char response;
    cin >> response;
 
    return 0;
}
 

The program cannot open the file, and thus always returns 1;

My text1.txt file is in C:\Documents and Settings\Alex\My Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\frequency\frequency\text1.txt

How do I make it open the file so 1 is not returned?

[Banfa]

Your program attempts to open a file in the current directory so the most likely reason is that your program is not being run in the same directory as the directory you have placed your text1.txt file in.

[Alex T]

I have figured out why:

When I write

 infile.open("text1.txt");

I need to write the directory as so:

"C:\\text1.txt"

Thank you.

[fecalTransplant]

Just to add to what Alex said 12 years ago: If you're opening the following example path as described by your operating system:

"D:\C++\RawDataReader\RawDataReader\data.csv"

You would need to do the infile.open with the text as:

"D:\\C++\\RawDataReader\\RawDataReader\\data.csv"

And this worked. So now I'll just be making a loop to add an extra '\' wherever there's one in the filename.

C++ can be a little mystifying at times