text and binary files

Creating or opening a file

For writing data
Text Files ofstream out (“myfile.txt”); or ofstream out; out.open(“myfile.txt”);	Binary Files Ofstream out (“myfile.txt”,ios::binary); or ofstream out; out.open(“myfile.txt”, ios::binary);
For Appending (adding text at the end of the existing file)
Text Files ofstream out(“myfile.txt”,ios::app); or ofstream out; out.open(“myfile.txt”, ios::app);	Binary Files Ofstream out (“myfile.txt”,ios::app|ios::binary); or ofstream out; out.open(“myfile.txt”, ios::app | ios::binary);
For reading data
Text Files ifstream in (“myfile.txt”); or ifstream in ; in.open(“myfile.txt”);	Binary Files ifstream in (“myfile.txt”, ios::binary); or ifstream in ; in.open(“myfile.txt”, ios::binary);

Closing Files (after reading or writing)

ofstream object “out”	Ifstream object “in”
out.close();	in.close();

Reading / Writing Data to and from files

Data	Functions for reading file	Function for writing into file
char	get();	put();
1 word	>> (extraction operator)	<< (insertion operator)
>=1 word	getline();	<< (insertion operator)
Objects	read()	write()
Binary data	Same as above	Same as above

4) Functions that can be used to perform special tasks

Operation	function	Description
Checking end of file.	eof()	Used to check eof during the reading of file
Check if an operation fails.	bad()	Returns true if a reading or writing operation fails.
Check if an operation fails.	Fail()	Returns true in the same cases as bad(), but also in the case that a format error happens.
Checking for opened file.	is_open();	Checks if the file is opened or not, returns true if the file is opened else false
Number of bytes already read.	gcount()	Returns count of the bytes read from the file
Ignoring characters during file read.	ignore()	Ignores n bytes from the file. (get pointer is positioned after n character)
Checking next character.	peek()	Checks the next available character, will not increase the get pointer to next character.
Random access (only for binary files).	seekg() seekp() tellg() tellp()	In case of binary files random access is performed using these functions. They either give or set the position of get and put pointers on the particular locatio