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Reading from a file

Lesson 7 of 23 in Coddy's C++ File Handling course.

Reading from a file in C++ can be performed after the file has been opened successfully using an object from the ifstream class. 
There are several different ways to read from file:

  • Line by Line - you read every line separately throughout the whole file
  • Char by Char - you read every character on its own, even including the spaces
  • Variable by Variable - you read using ifstream in the same way you would read from standard input, using the >> operator, so you can read a whole word, a number or even a sign (best for Competitive Programming)

So, now when you know what the different methods of reading from a file are, in the next lessons you can learn how to use them.
There is one important part though, we need to use a loop to keep reading until we reach the end of the file, so there is a special method called .eof() meaning end-of-file, which terminates the loop when the end of the file is reached. 

Try it yourself

This lesson doesn't include a code challenge.

All lessons in C++ File Handling