Saving Information
Author
I was wondering, how do you save information in a game. Like in this stupid text based game I have(all my games are like that), it requires a username and password. I was wondering, how do you save the password and username? And once i do, how do I let the program know what usernames go with what passwords?
Thanks
Look up the Stdlib.h and stdio.h in your compiler's main library, you want to learn the functions fopen, fclose, fwrite, fread, et al.
Well, how I would do it is; have a function that saves and calls the file I/O for the password and username.
EDIT:Too slow.
void saveGame();//...void saveGame(){ //file I/O here...}//...if (blah){ saveGame();}//...EDIT:Too slow.
To keep track of what usernames go with what passwords, just put them next to each other.
Write username
Write password
Write username
Write password
etc...
Then, when someone enters a username and password, loop through all the information in the text file until either you find a username and password that match what was entered, or you don't find a combo that match and you thus tell the player they did not enter a correct username or password.
If you are confused on file IO, here is an excellent tutorial:
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1127.asp
P.S. THis will not be secure at all. Someone could simply open the text file to read the passwords. My suggestion is to change the extension from .txt to .pwd or something. That will at least deter the casual player.
Write username
Write password
Write username
Write password
etc...
Then, when someone enters a username and password, loop through all the information in the text file until either you find a username and password that match what was entered, or you don't find a combo that match and you thus tell the player they did not enter a correct username or password.
If you are confused on file IO, here is an excellent tutorial:
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1127.asp
P.S. THis will not be secure at all. Someone could simply open the text file to read the passwords. My suggestion is to change the extension from .txt to .pwd or something. That will at least deter the casual player.
Actually, Expat is a better XML library, but it only does reading, not writing. Of course, who needs writing really, that part is easy. Anyways, lets consider some code. I am of the belief however that "PASSWORDS" are properly encrypted as the point of input and hashes are compared, as opposed to back and forth encryption and decryption.
ASSUMING that you're using an XML system like expat, then this would work great.
typedef struct UserFiles{ char username[256]; char password[256];} UserFiles_T;UserFiles_T users[256];int save_passwords(){ FILE * outfile; int x; outfile = fopen( "userrecords.dat", "w" ); if (!outfile) return 0; fprintf( outfile, "<?xml version="1.0"?>\n<userarchive>\n" ); for ( x=0; x<256; x++ ) { fprintf( outfile, " <user name=\"%s\" password=\"%s\"/>\n", users[x].username, users[x].password ); } fprintf( outfile, "</userarchive>\n" ); fclose( outfile ); return 1;}ASSUMING that you're using an XML system like expat, then this would work great.
Quote:Original post by Inmate2993How is it better if it lacks features like writing? I've never tried out Expat, but I have used TinyXML quite a bit and must say that it's very powerful.
Actually, Expat is a better XML library, but it only does reading, not writing. Of course, who needs writing really, that part is easy.
If you are just doing something this simple, you do not need to go and use XML really. If you are just using this for a name password system, STL is your best friend. This took me less than 30 mins:
Have a look to see what concepts are being used. If you have never seenthis much STL use before (map,iterator,vector), then I strongly suggest learning it. Thanks to Fruny for getting me intrested in standardized C++. I would have never tried STL otherwise. Hopefully you should be able to follow along, if not, feel free to ask. You can use this as a model to get what you need to do - I do not think it is 'everything' you wanted, but if it is less work for you [smile].
Anyways, this example uses the most basic XOR encryption, but anyone just looking at the file will never be able to figure it out unless they knew you used XOR encrpytion. You could definitly use a strong protection if you really wanted to as well. Take a look at TEA. Compliments to Mr. Loach for that question about it and smart_idiot for his 'free time' [lol].
I think that's about it now. Can't think of anything else really. It's written in my own "C+" style, mixture of C and C++, so that's why I have a memset in there as well as no classes. I'm sure you could do a bit OOP'ing to it if you wanted to integrate it into your projects.
- Drew
#include <iostream>#include <fstream>#include <sstream>#include <map>#include <vector>// http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/viewreply.asp?ID=1924249std::vector<std::string> tokenize(const std::string & str, const std::string & delim);using namespace std;map<string,string> UserList;// Case sensitive!void AddUser( string username, string password ){ // Just add it to the map UserList[ username ] = password;}// Case sensitive!void RemoveUser( string username ){ // Just clear the password UserList[ username ] = "";}void Save( string filename, char key ){ stringstream str; for( map<string,string>::iterator itr = UserList.begin(); itr != UserList.end(); itr++) { if( itr->second != "" ) str << itr->first << "~" << itr->second << endl; } string temp = str.str(); for( int x=0;x<temp.size();x++) { temp[x] ^= key; } ofstream OF; OF.open( filename.c_str() ); OF << temp; OF.close();}void Load( string filename, char key ){ ifstream IF; IF.open( filename.c_str() ); string str = ""; char buffer[1024]; memset( buffer, 0, 1024 ); while( IF.read(buffer,1024) ) { str += buffer; memset( buffer, 0, 1024 ); } str += buffer; string temp = str; for( int x=0;x<temp.size();x++) { // Simple yet effective XOR encrption temp[x] ^= key; } IF.close(); // Time to parse! vector<string> tokens = tokenize(temp,"~\n"); for( x=0; x < tokens.size(); x+=2 ) { AddUser( tokens[x], tokens[x+1] ); }}void DisplayAll(){ for( map<string,string>::iterator itr = UserList.begin(); itr != UserList.end(); itr++) { if( itr->second != "" ) cout << itr->first << " " << itr->second << endl; }}int main( int argc, char** argv){ // Add the users AddUser("Drew Benton","123"); AddUser("Rob Loach","456"); AddUser("Inmate2993","789"); // Save with the key Save( "passwords.txt", 'A' ); // Show it all DisplayAll(); cout << "Clearing the list!" << endl << endl; // Now clear it UserList.clear(); // Show that we did clear it! DisplayAll(); // Now load it in Load( "passwords.txt", 'A' ); // Show it all loaded! DisplayAll(); return 0;};std::vector<std::string> tokenize(const std::string & str, const std::string & delim){ using namespace std; vector<string> tokens; size_t p0 = 0, p1 = string::npos; while(p0 != string::npos) { p1 = str.find_first_of(delim, p0); if(p1 != p0) { string token = str.substr(p0, p1 - p0); tokens.push_back(token); } p0 = str.find_first_not_of(delim, p1); } return tokens;}Have a look to see what concepts are being used. If you have never seenthis much STL use before (map,iterator,vector), then I strongly suggest learning it. Thanks to Fruny for getting me intrested in standardized C++. I would have never tried STL otherwise. Hopefully you should be able to follow along, if not, feel free to ask. You can use this as a model to get what you need to do - I do not think it is 'everything' you wanted, but if it is less work for you [smile].
Anyways, this example uses the most basic XOR encryption, but anyone just looking at the file will never be able to figure it out unless they knew you used XOR encrpytion. You could definitly use a strong protection if you really wanted to as well. Take a look at TEA. Compliments to Mr. Loach for that question about it and smart_idiot for his 'free time' [lol].
I think that's about it now. Can't think of anything else really. It's written in my own "C+" style, mixture of C and C++, so that's why I have a memset in there as well as no classes. I'm sure you could do a bit OOP'ing to it if you wanted to integrate it into your projects.
- Drew
Quote:Original post by Rob LoachQuote:Original post by Inmate2993How is it better if it lacks features like writing? I've never tried out Expat, but I have used TinyXML quite a bit and must say that it's very powerful.
Actually, Expat is a better XML library, but it only does reading, not writing. Of course, who needs writing really, that part is easy.
Expat has only a 100k footprint, as opposed to the 900k footprint I've seen other xml libraries have.
Plus, expat works in callback functions and buffers, so you can start parsing midway, rather then having to load an entire file.
Quote:Original post by Inmate2993Point taken, good sir. I'll have to try it out one day.Quote:Original post by Rob LoachQuote:Original post by Inmate2993How is it better if it lacks features like writing? I've never tried out Expat, but I have used TinyXML quite a bit and must say that it's very powerful.
Actually, Expat is a better XML library, but it only does reading, not writing. Of course, who needs writing really, that part is easy.
Expat has only a 100k footprint, as opposed to the 900k footprint I've seen other xml libraries have.
Plus, expat works in callback functions and buffers, so you can start parsing midway, rather then having to load an entire file.
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