convert a file (.txt,.pdf..) into a stream file

Question

I would like to ask what is the easiest and faster way to convert a file into a stream file.

I did the following :

//convert to stream:
std::string fil=          


        

Answer 1

As far as I know, the easiest way to read a file into a string (byte for byte) using only C++03 standard library facilities is:

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

std::string readfile ( const std::string& path )
{
    std::ostringstream contents;
    std::ifstream file(path.c_str(), std::ios::binary);
    contents << file.rdbuf();
    return (contents.str());
}

Then, you can proceed to whatever processing you want to apply:

std::cout << readfile("foo.txt") << std::endl;

If you want to apply base 64 encoding, I'll assume the following signature from your code, and a convenient overload:

std::string base64_encode( const unsigned char * data, std::size_t size );

std::string base64_encode ( const std::string& contents )
{
    const unsigned char * data =
        reinterpret_cast<const unsigned char*>(contents.data());
    return (base64_encode(data, contents.size()));
}

Which you can invoke as such:

// Read "foo.txt" file contents, then base 64 encode the binary data.
const std::string data = base64_encode(readfile("foo.txt"));