Saving and Loading from a text file

[tehrealbinglebob]

I was using the example code that is on this site:

// print the content of a text file.
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;

int main () {

     string test = "save";

     if(test == "load") {

          ifstream infile;

          infile.open ("test.txt", ifstream::in);

          while (infile.good()){
                
               cout << (char) infile.get() << endl;

          }
          
    infile.close();
  
     }
     
     if (test == "save") {
     
       char * buffer;
       long size;

       ifstream infile ("test.txt",ifstream::binary);
       ofstream outfile ("new.txt",ofstream::binary);

       // get size of file
       infile.seekg(0,ifstream::end);
       size=infile.tellg();
       infile.seekg(0);

       // allocate memory for file content
       buffer = new char [size];

       // read content of infile
       infile.read (buffer,size);

       // write to outfile
       outfile.write (buffer,size);
  
       // release dynamically-allocated memory
       delete[] buffer;

       outfile.close();
       infile.close();     
              
     }
     
     return 0;
}

The problem is that the saving portion involves 2 files and the data is copied from the first to the second. I want the data to be from a string the user types in and have that be saved to the new file. I changed the save part to this:

     if (test == "save") {
     
       string buffer;
       long size;

       cin >> buffer;
       
       size = buffer.length();

       ofstream outfile ("test.txt",ofstream::binary);

       // write to outfile
       outfile.write (buffer,size);

       outfile.close();  
              
     }

I get an error on the outfile.write(buffer,size); line.

Error:

38 C:\Documents and Settings\programming\Desktop\Science Fair\C++\MEDS\test.cpp no matching function for call to `std::basic_ofstream<char, std::char_traits<char> >::write(std::string&, long int&)'

AND

note C:\Dev-Cpp\include\c++\3.4.2\bits\ostream.tcc:360 candidates are: std::basic_ostream<_CharT, _Traits>& std::basic_ostream<_CharT, _Traits>::write(const _CharT*, std::streamsize) [with _CharT = char, _Traits = std::char_traits<char>]

What am I doing wrong?

[ultifinitus]

is there a particular reason you are using fstream.write()?

you could simply do this

fstream myStream;
myStream.open("myfile.txt",ios::out);
myStream << stringToOutputToFile;

oh and I believe (not positive) in order to make your code work use the .c_str() method. Like this:

outfile.write(buffer.c_str(),size);

[tehrealbinglebob]

I was just working on the code and I worked it out with a bit more research of this site. Heres my completed code:

// print the content of a text file.
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;

int main () {

     string saveload;
     
     cout << "Welcome to the program!\n" << endl;
     cout << "---------------------------" << endl;
     cout << "| save - Save to a file   |" << endl;
     cout << "| load - Load from a file |" << endl;
     cout << "---------------------------\n" << endl;
     
     getline(cin,saveload);

     if(saveload == "load") {

          ifstream loadFile;

          loadFile.open ("Save.txt", ifstream::in);

          cout << "The file contained: ";
          
          while (loadFile.good()){
                
               cout << (char) loadFile.get();

          }
          
          cout << "" << endl;
          
    loadFile.close();
  
     }
     
     if (saveload == "save") {
     
       string textToSave;
       cout << "Enter the string you want saved: " << endl;
       getline(cin,textToSave);

       ofstream saveFile ("Save.txt");

       saveFile << textToSave;

       saveFile.close();    
              
     }
     
     return 0;
}

It works perfectly!