Question

I have written a piece of code which writes either to console or to a file depending upon the boolean value set by user.

The code looks like this.

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>

int main()
{
    bool bDump;
    std::cout<<"bDump bool"<<std::endl;
    std::cin>>bDump;
    std::ostream* osPtr;
    std::ofstream files;

    if(bDump)
    {
    files.open("dump.txt");
    osPtr = &files;
    }
    else
    {
    osPtr = &std::cout;
    }

    std::ostream& stream = *osPtr;
    stream<<"hello";

    if(bDump)
    {
    files.close();
    }
    return 0;
}

Here I am creating a std::ostream pointer and depending upon boolean value I am assinging address of either an ofstream object or std::cout. My only concern here whether the file operation like open or close are done properly or not. As I am new to c++ please help me out. Also point out if any bad programming practice is being followed here.

Answer 1

Its correct and works.
The main thing I would do differently is not to explicitly call close() as this is done automatically by the destructor.

You can simplify your code slightly (and get rid of the pointer) with the ternary operator;

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>

int main()
{
    bool bDump;
    std::cout  << "bDump bool"<<std::endl;
    std::cin   >> bDump;
    std::ofstream files;

    std::ostream& stream =  (bDump) ? (files.open("dump.txt"), files)
                                    : std::cout;

    stream<<"hello";    
}