Hello Justaddwater,

look at the code you have I would say you passing in a file stream which is at the end. your looping until eof.

use the tellg of the file stream to get the size of the file.
tellg tells you how big the file is.
are if you still looping until eof, then use seekg will go to a offset in the file. in this case seekg(0) will take you back to the beginning of the file.

then allocate your memory and pass the file stream to your loadlist with your new array.

Hope that helps.

edited:

Ok I see what your trying to do. Long day at work on debug thread/socket code slowing down my mind.

Ok you wanted number of lines.
do what you do but call fin.seekg(0) before you call loadlist.
then youshould be fine. at lest formthe stand point your at the begining of fin now.

Lord Bart

[edited by - lord bart on November 29, 2003 6:31:30 PM]

hey,

Thanks for all your ideas, I still cannot get it to work right, I have now put this in main

	ifstream fin;	fin.open (inFile);	book cbook[500];loadlist(cbook, fin);

Then this in the loadlist function;

string temp;	int total =0;	ifstream fin;	fin.open (inFile);	for  (int x = 0; x < 500; x++)	{		while (!fin.eof())		{		getline (fin, temp);		total++;		}

And I sort of get what I want, but not really. I cannt tell how to manipulate that array I have created, or pass a value to it or take one from it.

Below is the entire code as it lasy so far, and any ideas are awesome... I''m glad I have two weeks to get this working

#include <fstream>#include <iostream>#include <string>#include <cmath>#include <iomanip>#include <cctype>using namespace std;const int total = 5;#define inFile "Booklist.txt"#define outFile "Booklist2.txt"void display();void search();void add();int menu(int);class book{	public:		book (); //default constructor		book (string, string, string, string, string, string); //non-default		string BookCode;		string Year, Price;		string FName, LName, Title;		private:		};book::book (){	//cout << "in Default contructor\n";	BookCode = "5555555555";	Year = "2000";	Price = "50";	FName = "John";	LName = "Doe";	Title = "Reading for Dummies";}book::book (string bc, string yr, string pr, string fn, string ln, string ti){	//cout << "In non-default constructor\n";	BookCode = bc;	Year = yr;	Price = pr;	FName = fn;	LName = ln;	Title = ti;}void loadlist (book[], ifstream &);void main (){	ifstream fin;	fin.open (inFile);	book cbook[500];//500 is MAX size of book listloadlist(cbook, fin);	//menu(1);//MENU TURNED OFF 		system ("pause");}int menu (int x)//SKELETON MENU SYSTEM{cout << "Welcome to the Book Cataloging System\n please make your choice below: \n";cout << "(1) Display Catalog.\n";cout << "(2) Search the Catalog. \n";cout << "(3) Add a book to the catalog. \n";cout << "(4) Quit. \n";cin >> x;switch (x){	case 1 : display();		break;	case 2 : search();		break;	case 3: add();		break;	case 4 : exit(1);		break;}return 1;}void display()//PLACEHOLDER{	cout << "DISPLAYING LIST\n";}void search()//SKELETON FOR SEARCH TOOL{	char y;	cout << "Search List by..\n Author (F)irst name, (L)ast name or (B)ook code?\n";	cout << "Enter (F), (L) or (B): " <<endl;	cin >> y;	switch (y)	{	case ''f'' : 		cout << "SEARCHING BY FIRST NAME...\n";		break;	case ''F'' : cout << "SEARCHING BY FIRST NAME...\n";		break;	case ''l'' : cout << "SEARCHING BY LAST NAME...\n";		break;	case ''L'' : cout << "SEARCHING BY LAST NAME...\n";		break;	case ''b'' : cout << "SEARCHING BY BOOK CODE...\n";	    break;	case ''B'' : cout << "SEARCHING BY BOOK CODE...\n";	    break;	default: cout << "INVALID\n";				 break;	}}void add()//PLACEHOLDER FOR FUNCTION{	cout << "ADD A BOOK";}void loadlist (book inout[], ifstream & inF ){	string temp;	int total =0;	ifstream fin;	fin.open (inFile);	for  (int x = 0; x < 500; x++)	{		while (!fin.eof())		{		getline (fin, temp);		total++;		}		}	cout << total;	system ("pause");fin.seekg(0);//Used to GOTO start of file	for (int i = 0; i < total; i++)	{		getline (inF, inout[i].BookCode, ''\t'');		getline (inF, inout[i].FName, ''\t'');		getline (inF, inout[i].LName, ''\t'');		getline (inF, inout[i].Title, ''\t'');		getline (inF, inout[i].Year, ''\t'');		getline (inF, inout[i].Price, ''\n'');											//inF.ignore (1);				cout << inout[i].BookCode;			cout << " " << inout[i].FName;				cout << " " <<inout[i].LName;			cout << " " <<inout[i].Title;			cout << " " <<inout[i].Year;			cout << " " <<inout[i].Price <<endl;	}fin.close ();}

Ok thats it!

I can;t belive how much fun C++ is , although as you can clearly see I''m JUST LEARNING it is a blast!

Thanks for your ideas, I''m still working on getting it to work right, I think I am just not understanding the logic behind what I''m tryign to do becouse NOTHING is working right, heh, I guess back to the book... more reading... anyway I''m still open to any other ideas, I have learned a lot of stuff from just playing with you guys/girls suggestions!

The compiler is (was) giving the message, "expected constant expression" because when you create an array on the STACK (ie, book cbook[total]), the size of the array MUST BE KNOWN AT COMPILE-TIME; that is, the size (total) must be CONSTANT, not variable.

Thus if you want to dynamically allocate an array at runtime (you can''t say how big it is at compile-time), you must allocate it on the HEAP using the "new" operator. This operator returns a POINTER to the new data that you have created.

Eg)

int *a = new int [total];  // create an array of "total" integersfunc(a, total);            // pass the array (and size) to funcdelete [] a;               // free memory (must have for every new)...void func(int *array, int size){  // Go through the array  for (int i = 0; i < size; i ++)    array[i] = ...}

Notice that since the size of the array is not known at compile-time, you almost always have to pass the array SIZE as well as the array pointer to the function.

Also note that for every NEW that you have, there should be a corresponding DELETE when you are done with the data. You''ll get used to this one though and it becomes pretty simple. Just REMEMBER TO DO IT, or you have a memory leak

If you have any further questions, please ask.