I/O program stuck in loop C++

Question

I'm working on a code that reads in a C++ source file and converts all ‘<’ symbols to “<” and all ‘>’ symbols to “>”. I wrote out the main method and everything compiled nicely but now that I'm actually writing out my convert function at the top of the program, I'm stuck in an infinite loop and I'm hitting a wall on what the culprit is. Could someone help me out? I included the whole program in case the problem lies in my I/O coding but I surrounded the function with slashes. Hopefully I won't get flamed.

        #include <iostream>
        #include <fstream>
        #include <cstdlib>
        #include <string>
        #include <cstring>
        using namespace std;

//FUNCTION GOES THROUGH EACH CHARACTER OF FILE
//AND CONVERTS ALL < & > TO &lt; or &gt; RESPECTIVELY

//////////////THIS IS THE FUNCTION IN QUESTION//////////
void convert (ifstream& inStream, ofstream& outStream){
    cout << "start" << endl;
    char x;
    inStream.get(x);
    while (!inStream.eof()){
        if (x == '<')
            outStream << "&lt;";
        else if (x == '>')
            outStream << "&gt;";
        else
            outStream << x;
    }
    cout << "end" << endl;
};
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


int main(){

    //FILE OBJECTS
    ifstream inputStream;
    ofstream outputStream;
    string fileName;
    //string outFile;

    //USER PROMPT FOR NAME OF FILE
    cout << "Please enter the name of the file to be converted: " << endl;
    cin >> fileName;
    //outFile = fileName + ".html";

    //ASSOCIATES FILE OBJECTS WITH FILES
    inputStream.open(fileName.c_str());
    outputStream.open(fileName + ".html");

    //CREATES A CONVERTED OUTPUT WITH <PRE> AT START AND </PRE> AT END
    outputStream << " <PRE>" << endl;
    convert(inputStream, outputStream);
    outputStream << " </PRE>" << endl;

    inputStream.close();
    outputStream.close();

    cout << "Conversion complete." << endl;

    return 0;
}

Answer 1

It isn't a good approach to manipulate a file while you're reading it. The right way is, first read the whole file, store the data, manipulate the stored data, and then update the file. Hope this code will help you :)

   void convert()
    {
        int countLines = 0; // To count total lines in file
        string *lines; // To store all lines
        string temp;
        ifstream in; 
        ofstream out;
        // Opening file to count Lines
        in.open("filename.txt");
        while (!in.eof())
        {
            getline(in, temp);
            countLines++;
        }
        in.close();
        // Allocating Memory
        lines = new string[countLines];
        // Open it again to stroe data
        in.open("filename.txt");
        int i = 0;
        while (!in.eof())
        {
            getline(in, lines[i]);

            // To check if there is '<' symbol in the following line
            for (int j = 0; lines[i][j] != '\0'; j++)
            {
                // Checking the conditon
                if (lines[i][j] == '<')
                    lines[i][j] = '>';
            }
            i++;
        }
        in.close();
        // Now mainuplating the file
        out.open("filename.txt");
        for (int i = 0; i < countLines; i++)
        {
            out << lines[i];
            if (i < countLines - 1)
                out << endl;
        }
        out.close();
    }