Hi I'm a semi-beginner. I have a few questions about character arrays. 1. I have a number in scientific notation that I read in from a file, so the number is something like: 1.532E-017 I want to convert this number to a float. I know one way to do it is to parse the array into a base and an exponent portion and do some math: float num = 100*hundreds+10*tens+1*ones*pow(10,exponent) where hundreds, tens and ones would be placeholders for the respective digits in the base. But this seems too complicated. Is there any easier way? 2. Also each number that I read in has a paramter name. I'd like to store the numbers that I read from the file into a data structure with the corresponding parameter name: and I don't want to use a lookup table. Is there some way to do: dataStructure.(param name read from file) = (param value read from file)? Hope my questions aren't too long...

1)


or I believe:



2)
I'm not sure what you mean by a 'lookup table'...

some_file >> obj.member;

Well if I read in the param name and value into a strings called sName and sValue respectively, to identify what I read I have to do something like:

if (!strcmp(sName, "param1")
{
dataStructure.param1 = sValue;
}
else if (!strcmp(sName, "param2")
{
dataStructure.param2 = sValue;
}
...

etc.

If I have 5000 different param names, not only do I have to have a data structure with 5000 fields, but I have to have 5000 if statements. I'm ok writing the data structure with 5000 fields (it's not that many actually), but I don't want to have to write 5000 if statements. What I really want to do is:

dataStructure.sName = sValue;

where sName and sValue are what I read from the file.

btw thanks for answering the first post

Although it looks like you would prefer a C solution (considering you suggested strcmp()) instead of C++ (presented above). In that case, someone else can advise you.

wow sweet, thanks a bunch... that was really fast