----------------------------------- Tubs Sat Jul 08, 2006 9:42 pm file reading logic problem ----------------------------------- how would one go about reading only the numbers if the following was in a text file? blah asdfa 16 9 4 ilikecheese 5 6 7 asdfklja asdfa usually i just approach the problem with something like: while (fscanf(in,"%d %d %d", &var1, &var2, &var3) != EOF); but in this situation that would never equal EOF since it is not at the end of the file. How would i write this so that only the numbers are scanned, and once it reaches the last series of numbers in the text file it would exit the program? ----------------------------------- r.3volved Sun Jul 09, 2006 9:09 am ----------------------------------- are you using C or C++?? I'd say off hand something like: ifstream inFile("filename.txt"); while(!inFile.eof()) { getline(inFile, newline, '\n'); vecLines.push_back(newline); } inFile.close(); then parse the vector "vecLines" and check if it's a number or letter This would work fine for a small file, but this becomes redundant quickly when you have large data sets (ie. there's no point in reading the whole file and comparing variable data when you can check with each line parse) You could do a some error catching and grab data like: inFile >> newNum; if it throws an error it's a letter, otherwise the number will be cast to newNum. ----------------------------------- Tubs Sun Jul 09, 2006 12:06 pm ----------------------------------- it is in C, and they are large text files. ----------------------------------- Andy Sun Jul 09, 2006 12:14 pm ----------------------------------- its impossible. you're assuming your program can be psychic.. how can you know there are no more numbers left if you dont scan through it? give us some more info, what is ths program for, and how is the text file generated ----------------------------------- r.3volved Sun Jul 09, 2006 2:52 pm ----------------------------------- you WILL have to parse the entire file to determine the numbers from the strings... I suppose you could grab every line and determine if it's a number based on it's ascii code, or go character by character. It's a simple: 47 < asciiVal < 58 if it's a number, keep it if it's a letter, ignore it keep concatinating it until you hit a determined delimiter (spaces and carriage returns) But as was mentioned, your program can not determine if there are any numbers left without finding the end of file. ----------------------------------- Tubs Sun Jul 09, 2006 3:53 pm ----------------------------------- more info: the line to be read will always start with the same characters and be in the same format. example: blah blah Read this: 16 73 4 blah Read this: 10 3920 2 blah i am using this program to go through text files generated by a poker site to convert the hands into a single point based number to analyze the strength of the hands. would a sample txt file help? ----------------------------------- r.3volved Sun Jul 09, 2006 4:28 pm ----------------------------------- Sample text file always helps... ...at least 10-20 records would be nice Does it have to be in C? What compiler are you using? Windows or Linux? ----------------------------------- Tubs Sun Jul 09, 2006 4:54 pm ----------------------------------- Sample text file always helps... ...at least 10-20 records would be nice Does it have to be in C? What compiler are you using? Windows or Linux? sample text is attached. line to be read: Dealt to Bewmar [ %c%c %c%c ] reading four characters (two numbers and two suits) Dev C++ in windows ----------------------------------- wtd Sun Jul 09, 2006 5:45 pm ----------------------------------- I would highly advise that you develop a program which can parse all of this information, and store it in some kind of data structure. This is possible in C, but you would find it easier in other languages.