Reading binary values C++

Alriightyman · Oct 3, 2014

Writing float data to a binary file and then reading it.

http://pastebin.com/EZxWqKH8
And here is the output:

Code (Text):

1.01234 1.01234

2.01234 0.012343

3.01234 0.012344

4.01234 0.012345

5.01234 0.01234

EDIT: Serious Fromating issues

GerbilSoft · Oct 3, 2014

The output file is:

Code (Text):

00000000 31 2e 30 31 32 33 34 32 2e 30 31 32 33 34 33 2e |1.012342.012343.|

00000010 30 31 32 33 34 34 2e 30 31 32 33 34 35 2e 30 31 |012344.012345.01|

00000020 32 33 34 |234|

You're printing the string representations of the floating-point numbers without separators. cin has no idea how to separate them, so it gets the values wrong.

You need to add spaces between the numbers, either an actual space character or a newline.

If you wanted to print the binary representation, you'll need to print the raw bytes, which is more easily done using C stdio than with iostream. (Note that this may cause endian issues if you switch between little-endian and big-endian systems.)

Alriightyman · Oct 3, 2014

Thanks, but why is it writing the string representation of the float value? I thought it should write it as a 32-bit binary.

flamewing · Oct 3, 2014

The >> and << operators are for formatted input and output; it converts the values passed into strings based on one of a dozen overloads.

What you want is to either use the read or write member functions of the streams; e.g.:

Code (Text):

file.write(reinterpret_cast<char const *>(&outArray[I]), sizeof(outArray[I]));

Edit: But as GerbilSoft mentions, this can lead to big- versus little-endian issues.

Edit 2: Additional reading: output, input.

Alriightyman · Oct 4, 2014

Thanks a lot! That helped.

I'm not worried about big-/little-endian issues for this little project, but I will keep it in mind.

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Reading binary values C++

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