search a file for a string [resolved]

[markman]

Im trying to figure out how to search a file for a certain string, returning the byte (I can use seekg for the rest).

Say the file was:

Marketing
2
Billboards
17
TVAds
2
Customer
5
DDR_RAM
120
Monitors
52
Motherboards
23
CPU(Athlon)

It would return the byte offset of Customer.

How would I do that?

[SteveCRM]

I just did an example like this in school

you can get each word by doing

ifstream InFile("myfile.txt", ios::nocreate);

while(InFile>>mystring)
{
// check what each word is...if its the word you're looking for
// you can have a counter, even gets names, odds gets info
// or something like that
}


something like that?

[markman]

yeah thats the thing. it doesnt work.
do {
inFile >> szLine;
} while (szLine != "Customer");

It runs an infinite loop.....

[SteveCRM]

how did you declare szLine?

if you declared it for more characters than you're checking, maybe the items that are null is screwing up the check.

[markman]

I get a memory error if I try and make it a char*, so Im doing a char[256]. If I do the exact amount of chars in customer, then I cant fit other strings from the file like "Management".....

[markman]

figured it out. used a oostring instead of char[x]

[CornedBee]

....

You can't compare C-style strings with ==. You need the function strcmp. If you use a string class, you should use string (declared in <string>), it's the only one that's in the C++ standard.