Need help with reading/writing dat file with struct !

[Etsho]

Hello Guys ,

Iam new in c++ coding , so i want you to help to find a solution for this.

I need to read and write to the dat file using this struct:

typedef struct contact
{ 	
 char first[100]; 	
 char last[100]; 	
 char phone[50]; 
}contact;

Thanks

[TechDude]

For opening the .dat file you can use this code to display the text in the file to your cmd:
i'll try to explain step by step what down here since you're new to c++ coding.

// reading a text file
#include <iostream> 
#include <fstream> //class for both write and reading files
#include <string> //don't forget to include this stream! else you can't read strings
using namespace std;

int main () { 
  string line; //define line as new string
  ifstream myfile ("FILE.dat"); //opens the file for reading
  if (myfile.is_open()) //if the file is open 
  {
    while ( myfile.good() ) //new loop while myfile.good()
    {
      getline (myfile,line); //so as long as myfile.good() is true then getline from you're file
      cout << line << endl; //print's the line out on your screen
     //when you hit the bottom of your file then myfile.good() is no longer true so
    }
    myfile.close(); //close the file 
  }

  else cout << "Unable to open file";  // if you could not open the file then display an error

  return 0; //return 0 means there were no errors.
}

and for writing to the file you'd prob need something like this:

// writing on a text file
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream> 
using namespace std;
char first[100]; 	
char last[100]; 	
char phone[50]; 
int main () {
  ofstream myfile ("FILE.dat"); //open file for writing 
  if (myfile.is_open()) //if you're file is open then
  {
    //writes your 3 chars to the file. you can use myfile the same as cout to write something to your file
    myfile << first << endl;
    myfile << last << endl;
    myfile << phone << endl;
    myfile.close(); //when you're done close the file
  }
  else cout << "Unable to open file"; //if there was an error display this
  return 0; //return 0 if there was no error 
}

I hope this helps you. More info about reading and writing files can be found here: Writing & reading files