From: "Alex P." <roboto11 AT hotmail DOT com>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.lang.learn.c-c++,comp.lang.c++,comp.os.msdos.djgpp
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Subject: Re: Need some help with reading from files
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Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2001 19:03:26 GMT
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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"John Harrison" <jahhaj AT bigfoot DOT com> wrote in message
news:YOjx6.6567$MZ2 DOT 1113022 AT news2-win DOT server DOT ntlworld DOT com...

[snip]

>
> Despite what others have told you about seekg, it is an error to pass
> anything to seekg that isn't either the end of file, the start of file or
a
> position previously returned from tellg UNLESS you are dealing with a
binary
> file. You want to use a text file so seekg is going to be of limited use
to
> you (unless you want to write non-portable code).


What I wrote *is* portable. There is no rule that says "you can't use seekg
with text files" and that it's an "error" to do so. No documentation about
seekg says such a thing. It is your choice what method you use to access a
character in a file -- seekg is one of them. All you need to do is make sure
you take into account the length of platform-dependant eol character(s)
(e.g. CR/LF for DOS/Windows) -- which I did by taking into account the eol
length with EOL_LEN.

Alex