I'm trying to write a C structure in a file (to write in binary) and read it to recover it. I don't know if it is possible.
Here is what I have :
head.hh:
#include <iostream>
typedef struct s_test
{
char cmd[5];
std::string str;
}t_test;
main.cpp:
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include "head.hh"
int main()
{
t_test test;
int fd = open("test", O_APPEND | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC | O_WRONLY, 0666);
test.cmd[0] = 's';
test.cmd[1] = 'm';
test.cmd[2] = 's';
test.cmd[3] = 'g';
test.str = "hello world";
write(fd, &test, sizeof(t_test));
close(fd);
fd = open("test", O_APPEND | O_CREAT | O_WRONLY, 0666);
t_test test2;
read(fd, &test2, sizeof(t_test));
std::cout << test2.cmd << " " << test2.str << std::endl;
return (0);
}
And on the output I have something like :
Ȟ�
The file to read from was being opened as write only.
The actual std::string
object can't be written that way. The actual object generally contains a couple of pointers and perhaps a size but not the actual character data. It need to be serialized.
If you're going to be writing C++ you should consider learning to use file streams rather than what you've got here.
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <io.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
typedef struct s_test
{
char cmd[5];
std::string str;
}t_test;
void Write(int fd, struct s_test* test)
{
write(fd, test->cmd, sizeof(test->cmd));
unsigned int sz = test->str.size();
write(fd, &sz, sizeof(sz));
write(fd, test->str.c_str(), sz);
}
void Read(int fd, struct s_test* test)
{
read(fd, test->cmd, sizeof(test->cmd));
unsigned int sz;
read(fd, &sz, sizeof(sz));
std::vector<char> data(sz);
read(fd, &data[0], sz);
test->str.assign(data.begin(), data.end());
}
int main()
{
t_test test;
int fd = open("test", O_APPEND | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC | O_WRONLY, 0666);
test.cmd[0] = 's';
test.cmd[1] = 'm';
test.cmd[2] = 's';
test.cmd[3] = 'g';
test.cmd[4] = 0;
test.str = "hello world";
std::cout << "Before Write: " << test.cmd << " " << test.str << std::endl;
Write(fd, &test);
close(fd);
fd = open("test", O_RDONLY, 0666);
t_test test2;
Read(fd, &test2);
std::cout << "After Read: " << test2.cmd << " " << test2.str << std::endl;
close(fd);
return (0);
}
See when you dump an structure into binary file its in memory image gets written on disk for example:
class X
{
public:
int i;
int j;
};
.
.
.
X lX;
lX.i= 10;
lX.j = 20;
an object of class lX when written into a binary file will look something like |10|20|
i.e when you'll read it will work fine.
but for a class which contains any pointer like string does.
class Y
{
public:
int* pi;
int j;
};
.
.
.
Y lY;
lY.pi= new int(10); // lets assume this is created at memory location 1001
lY.j = 20;
so object lY will have value of pi as 1001 (not 10, as it is a pointer). now when you write lY to a binary file it will look like |10001|20| and when you'll read it back it will construct new object of Y (say lY2 )having values pi to be 1001 and j to be 20. Now we what do pi(which is a pointer) points to?? answer is garbage, that is something you are looking on screen. I guess you are using Windows to run this as Linux would have given you a segmentation fault.