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How can I get the reason for a file operation failure, say after
fstream:pen() or fstream::read()?

In C, after fopen(), fread(), etc. you can check errno or get a
message using perror() and strerror().

I cannot find any equivalent for C++ fstreams.

On Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:11:28 +0100, Steve Keller wrote:

> How can I get the reason for a file operation failure, say after
> fstream:pen() or fstream::read()?
>
> In C, after fopen(), fread(), etc. you can check errno or get a message
> using perror() and strerror().
>
> I cannot find any equivalent for C++ fstreams.

This is why my college said that streams are great evil
On Linux one can still chek errno after stream failure.

On Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:11:28 +0100, Steve Keller wrote:

> How can I get the reason for a file operation failure, say after
> fstream:pen() or fstream::read()?
>
> In C, after fopen(), fread(), etc. you can check errno or get a message
> using perror() and strerror().

Nothing in the C standards require fopen() or fread() to set errno on
failure. More generally, the standards only define the values EDOM, EILSEQ
and ERANGE, so anything else is implementation-dependent.

> I cannot find any equivalent for C++ fstreams.

fstream:pen() calls fstream::rdbuf()->open(), which operates "as if by
calling std::fopen()" (27.9.1.4[filebuf.members]p2).

In C++11, <cerrno> is aligned with POSIX rather than C, so EEXIST etc are
defined. However, fopen() is defined by reference to the C standard,
which doesn't specify its behaviour on failure with respect to errno (see
above). And POSIX doesn't mention C++.

So I guess it all depends upon what you want to read into "as if by
std::fopen()".

On 05.02.13 15.12, Melzzzzz wrote:
> This is why my college said that streams are great evil

Full ACK. I know about C++ streams about 20 years. And in all these 20
years of C++ programming I did not find even one use case where fstreams
fit the need best. I tested them from time to time, but it never made it
to production code.
Either I ended up with the C style I/O API (fopen...) or I directly
called the platform specific operating system functions. Mostly I took
the first choice. Only if the code is bound to one platform anyway I
used the OS APIs.

> On Linux one can still chek errno after stream failure.

Yes, but the code is no longer portable.


Marcel.

On Wed, 2013-02-06, Marcel Müller wrote:
> On 05.02.13 15.12, Melzzzzz wrote:
>> This is why my college said that streams are great evil
>
> Full ACK. I know about C++ streams about 20 years. And in all these 20
> years of C++ programming I did not find even one use case where fstreams
> fit the need best. I tested them from time to time, but it never made it
> to production code.

What was wrong with it, all those times? Reading a line of text into
a std::string is one simple and very useful thing. Being able to print
a user-defined type is another.

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . .
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .

Steve Keller <> writes:

> How can I get the reason for a file operation failure, say after
> fstream:pen() or fstream::read()?

In C++11, if you enable exceptions for the stream, then you can
get an error code from std::ios_base::failure, which is derived
from std::system_error.