A way to read data out of a file at compile time to put it somewhere in application image files to initialize an array

Question

considering visual C++ compiler, Lets say I\'ve got a file with whatever extension and it contains 100 bytes of data which are exactly the data that I want to initialize an arra

Answer 1

What I frequently use in testing for textual data is I create a std::istringstream object containing the text of the file to be read like this:

#include <string>
#include <fstream>
#include <sstream>

// raw string literal for easy pasting in
// of textual file data
std::istringstream internal_config(R"~(

# Config file

host: wibble.org
port: 7334
// etc....

)~");

// std::istream& can receive either an ifstream or an istringstream
void read_config(std::istream& is)
{
    std::string line;
    while(std::getline(is, line))
    {
        // do stuff
    }
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    // did the user pass a filename to use?
    std::string filename;
    if(argc > 2 && std::string(argv[1]) == "--config")
        filename = argv[2];

    // if so try to use the file
    std::ifstream ifs;
    if(!filename.empty())
        ifs.open(filename);

    if(ifs.is_open())
        read_config(ifs);
    else
        read_config(internal_config); // file failed use internal config
}

Answer 2

#include "filename"

or am I missing something obvious?

Answer 3

• Write a program that reads the 100 byte data file and generates as output, a file, with c++ code/syntax for declaring an array with the 100 bytes in the file.
• Include this new generated file(inline) in your main c++ file.
• Call the c++ compiler on the main c++ file.

Answer 4

You do this with a resource in a Windows program. Right-click the project, Add, Resource, Import. Give the custom resource type a name. Edit the resource ID, if necessary. Get a pointer to the resource data at runtime with FindResource and LoadResource.