Question

I’m attempting to solve the Project Euler Problem 8 with C++, and the problem is to find the greatest product of 5 consecutive numbers in a 1000 digit number. So I’m trying to figure out how to use file io to read the numbers into a char array that I will later convert to integers. The read works except for the last third of the last line I get weird lines, a green lantern symbol, and a heart.

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>

using namespace std;

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{

const int maxNum = 1000;
char buffer[maxNum];
char *bufferPointer = buffer;

ifstream infile;
infile.open("numberlist.txt");

if (!infile)
{
    cerr << "Error: Open file failure" << endl;
    return -1;
}

infile.read(bufferPointer, streamsize(maxNum));
infile.close();
cout << buffer << endl;
return 0;

}

This is what the txt file contains:

73167176531330624919225119674426574742355349194934
96983520312774506326239578318016984801869478851843
85861560789112949495459501737958331952853208805511
12540698747158523863050715693290963295227443043557
66896648950445244523161731856403098711121722383113
62229893423380308135336276614282806444486645238749
30358907296290491560440772390713810515859307960866
70172427121883998797908792274921901699720888093776
65727333001053367881220235421809751254540594752243
52584907711670556013604839586446706324415722155397
53697817977846174064955149290862569321978468622482
83972241375657056057490261407972968652414535100474
82166370484403199890008895243450658541227588666881
16427171479924442928230863465674813919123162824586
17866458359124566529476545682848912883142607690042
24219022671055626321111109370544217506941658960408
07198403850962455444362981230987879927244284909188
84580156166097919133875499200524063689912560717606
05886116467109405077541002256983155200055935729725
71636269561882670428252483600823257530420752963450

EDIT: Right after I posted this problem I just realized the problem might be the fact that read is reading the new lines and thus the array isn’t big enough to hold it all.

Answer 1

Two problems with your code.

First, it looks like you’re not accounting for newlines in your maxNum buffer size, so it stops reading either 19 or 38 characters before the end of the text file (depending on if you’re using Unix-style or Windows-style line breaks). Either increase the value of maxNum accordingly, or remove the line breaks from your text file.

Second, since you’re using a char array instead of a std::string to hold the buffer, it needs to be null-terminated to display properly if you use the stream operator. Add the following line after you read the buffer in (you’ll also need to increase your buffer size by one to account for the extra character).

buffer[maxNum-1] = '\0';

Alternatively, you can use cout.write() to display a known-length buffer that’s not null-terminated, as follows:

cout.write(buffer, maxNum);