while loop stops too late with eof check [duplicate]

Question

This question already has answers here:

Why is iostream::eof inside a loop condition (i.e. `while (!stream.eof())`) considered wrong? (5 answers)

Closed 9 years ago.

I have to read a file that contains a list of paths which are stored in a vector.

    vector<string> files;
    ifstream in;
    string x;

    while( !in.eof() ) {
       in >> x;
       files.push_back(x);
    }

but the problem is that when the last path is read in.eof() is still false and the loop continue for another unwanted step. A fix could be a thing like this

    vector<string> files;
    ifstream in;
    string x;

    while( in >> x ) {
       files.push_back(x);
    }

but I think that isn't a great solution in the case of a more complex code in the while loop. Am I wrong?

Answer 1

This will allow you to read to the end of the file and no further. As long as the file has text in it, this will read each line.

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int main () {
 string line;
 ifstream myfile ("example.txt");
 if (myfile.is_open())
 {
   while ( getline (myfile,line) )
   {
     cout << line << '\n';
   }
   myfile.close();
 }

 else cout << "Unable to open file"; 

 return 0;
}