How to open a filename that the user entered?

Question

    required.close();
    destined.close();
}

This program should ask the user to enter a filename and an output filename. The input filename should have a message that would be encrypted or decrypted, depends on the user's choice. The program should have 3 functions, one to check the file's existence, one to encrypt/decrypt each character and one to encrypt/decrypt the whole file.

Try using an absolute path. It's probably related to your program having a different working directory to what you expect. — Simple, Mar 08 '14 at 12:53
Is this a demonstration of how to write unreadable code - indentation please# — Ed Heal, Mar 08 '14 at 12:54
Calm down people, it's the first time I use this website!! Friendly much?! — May, Mar 08 '14 at 13:00
I solved the problem and now the program is working, thanks for your help guys! — May, Mar 10 '14 at 15:15

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

There are some errors and some things to change:

in the encChar function this is wrong: if (flag = true). You should use a comparison operator (==):
```
`if (flag == true)`
```
Someone prefers this form (comparison terms swapped):
```
`if (true == flag)`
```
because wrong assignments are detected.
in the encFile function it should be:
```
ofstream destined(outFile.c_str());
```
It's a good idea to enable warnings (e.g. with GCC/CLANG use -Wansi -Wall -Wextra) so that unused variables/parameters are detected (in your case the string outFile input parameter).

Pay attention at Simple's advice (Try using an absolute path. It's probably related to your program having a different working directory to what you expect) and your program should work.

You could improve your code with some other changes:

place variables in the narrowest scope possible and initialize variables in the declaration, e.g.
```
ifstream required;
required.open(inFile.c_str());
```
should be
```
ifstream required(inFile.c_str());
```
(and check for error before using the stream).
using namespace std is considered a bad practice.
coding style and formatting are pretty arbitrary, but code is much easier to follow if you always use the same style.
don't use global variables

"ofstream destined(outFile.c_str());" where would it be placed? — May, Mar 08 '14 at 15:07

How to open a filename that the user entered?

1 Answers1