Read file line by line using ifstream in C++

First, make an ifstream:

#include <fstream>
std::ifstream infile("thefile.txt");

The two standard methods are:

  1. Assume that every line consists of two numbers and read token by token:

    int a, b;
    while (infile >> a >> b)
    {
        // process pair (a,b)
    }
    
  2. Line-based parsing, using string streams:

    #include <sstream>
    #include <string>
    
    std::string line;
    while (std::getline(infile, line))
    {
        std::istringstream iss(line);
        int a, b;
        if (!(iss >> a >> b)) { break; } // error
    
        // process pair (a,b)
    }
    

You shouldn’t mix (1) and (2), since the token-based parsing doesn’t gobble up newlines, so you may end up with spurious empty lines if you use getline() after token-based extraction got you to the end of a line already.

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