What is the most elegant way to read a text file with c++?

There are many ways, you pick which is the most elegant for you.

Reading into char*:

ifstream file ("file.txt", ios::in|ios::binary|ios::ate);
if (file.is_open())
{
    file.seekg(0, ios::end);
    size = file.tellg();
    char *contents = new char [size];
    file.seekg (0, ios::beg);
    file.read (contents, size);
    file.close();
    //... do something with it
    delete [] contents;
}

Into std::string:

std::ifstream in("file.txt");
std::string contents((std::istreambuf_iterator<char>(in)), 
    std::istreambuf_iterator<char>());

Into vector<char>:

std::ifstream in("file.txt");
std::vector<char> contents((std::istreambuf_iterator<char>(in)),
    std::istreambuf_iterator<char>());

Into string, using stringstream:

std::ifstream in("file.txt");
std::stringstream buffer;
buffer << in.rdbuf();
std::string contents(buffer.str());

file.txt is just an example, everything works fine for binary files as well, just make sure you use ios::binary in ifstream constructor.

There's another thread on this subject.

My solutions from this thread (both one-liners):

The nice (see Milan's second solution):

string str((istreambuf_iterator<char>(ifs)), istreambuf_iterator<char>());

and the fast:

string str(static_cast<stringstream const&>(stringstream() << ifs.rdbuf()).str());

You seem to speak of elegance as a definite property of "little code". This is ofcourse subjective in some extent. Some would say that omitting all error handling isn't very elegant. Some would say that clear and compact code you understand right away is elegant.

Write your own one-liner function/method which reads the file contents, but make it rigorous and safe underneath the surface and you will have covered both aspects of elegance.

All the best

/Robert

I like Milan's char* way, but with std::string.

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <fstream>
#include <cstdlib>
using namespace std;

string& getfile(const string& filename, string& buffer) {
    ifstream in(filename.c_str(), ios_base::binary | ios_base::ate);
    in.exceptions(ios_base::badbit | ios_base::failbit | ios_base::eofbit);
    buffer.resize(in.tellg());
    in.seekg(0, ios_base::beg);
    in.read(&buffer[0], buffer.size());
    return buffer;
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
    if (argc != 2) {
        cerr << "Usage: this_executable file_to_read\n";
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }
    string buffer;
    cout << getfile(argv[1], buffer).size() << "\n";
}

(with or without the ios_base::binary, depending on whether you want newlines tranlated or not. You could also change getfile to just return a string so that you don't have to pass a buffer string in. Then, test to see if the compiler optimizes the copy out when returning.)

However, this might look a little better (and be a lot slower):

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <fstream>
#include <cstdlib>
using namespace std;

string getfile(const string& filename) {
    ifstream in(filename.c_str(), ios_base::binary);
    in.exceptions(ios_base::badbit | ios_base::failbit | ios_base::eofbit);
    return string(istreambuf_iterator<char>(in), istreambuf_iterator<char>());
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
    if (argc != 2) {
        cerr << "Usage: this_executable file_to_read\n";
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }
    cout << getfile(argv[1]).size() << "\n";
}