Using ifstream as a constructor parameter

[hopesfall]

I'm trying to pass an reference of the object ifstream to my constructor as such:

// myClass.cpp
int main(){
ifstream file;

myClass classobj = myClass(file);

}

I am defining the constructor as follows, in myClass.cpp:

myClass::myClass(ifstream &file){

// do stuff
}

I get the error of "No overloaded function of myClass::myClass matches the specified type."

Also, when I build the program, it tells me "syntax error: identifier 'ifstream'"

Also, I made sure I included this:
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <sstream>


What am I doing wrong? How can I pass an ifstream reference to my constructor?

[theranga]

ifstream and all other STL functions and classes are in namespace called std. To access them, you need to use std::<whatever you want here> (eg std::ifstream).

So then your constructor would look like this:

myClass::myClass (std::ifstream& file) {
// do stuff here
}

and your main would look like this:

int main () {
std::ifstream file;

// Note that this calls the constructor directly, rather than calling it and then calling the copy constructor
myClass classObj (file);

}

I hope this helped!

also, more on namespaces here:
http://cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/namespaces/

[hopesfall]

does it matter if i've also put "include namespace std" at the top?

EDIT: Thanks for pointing that out, actually. I had the include statement at the top of my .cpp file but not my header file.

[theranga]

it should say using namespace std;.

that will the same thing as what I described above, eg

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

ifstream file;

does the same thing as

#include <iostream>

std::ifstream file;

(edit):

the article i put a link to describes it much better than I have