Reading files using getline fstream

Question

Im having a bit of problem with getline. I want to read line by line but only the >> reading is working while the getline doesnt read. Here is my code:

int studentSize;
string programme;
filein >> studentSize;
filein >> programme;
if (programme == "Physics")
{
    for(int i=0; i < studentSize; i++)
    {
        getline (filein,namephys, '*');
        filein >> idphys;
        getline (filein,course, '*');
        filein >> mark;

        phys.push_back(new physics());
        phys[i]->setNameId(namephys, idphys);
        phys[i]->addCourse(course, mark);
        sRecord[idphys] = phys[i];
    }
}

And here is my file:

2
Physics
Mark Dale* 
7961050 
Quantum Programming* 
99

The output for Mark Dale and Quantum Programming doesnt work well. It seems to be getting the whole line before them. Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

A stream might fail at any time & your loop has no way of reacting to it. You should do something like this :

if( programme == "Physics" )
{
    filein.ignore();

    // a more strict version is : (#include <limits>)
    //filein.ignore( numeric_limits<streamsize>::max(), '\n' );

    while( getline(filein, namephys, '*') &&
           filein >> idphys &&
           filein.ignore() && //** ignore the trailing newline (operator>> doesn't read it)
           getline(filein, course, '*') &&
           filein >> mark &&
           filein.ignore() )
    {
        /* do something */
    }
}

This loop immediately exits whenever the stream state becomes bad