C++ How to Program, 10/e

Summary

Section 14.1 Introduction

• Files are used for data persistence (p. 616)—permanent retention of data.

• Computers store files on secondary storage devices (p. 616), such as hard disks, CDs, DVDs, flash memory and tapes.

Section 14.2 Files and Streams

• C++ views each file simply as a sequence of bytes.

• Each file ends either with an end-of-file marker or at a specific byte number recorded in a system-maintained, administrative data structure.

• When a file is opened, an object is created, and a stream is associated with the object.

• To perform file processing in C++, headers <iostream> and <fstream> must be included.

• Header <fstream> includes the definitions for the stream class templates basic_ifstream (for file input), basic_ofstream ...