This code is meant to output Hello World. but it outputs 0x22fed8

Question

I\'m learning File Handling in C++, but there is a problem here. I am trying to read a file. This code is meant to output Hello World. but it outputs 0x22fed8.

Answer 1

Lets examine the line

cout << file;

The reason this outputs a number is because deep under the hood fstream is a file pointer. By passing file to cout you're essentially asking for a cout of an fstream. This will default to the value of the underlying handle for the file.

If you want to output the contents of the file, you'll need to read it in and output it line by line.

fstream file;
file.open("test.txt",ios::in|ios::out);
file << "Hello World";
file.seekg (0, ios::beg);
while ( !file.eof() ) {
  string temp;
  file >> temp;
  cout << temp << std::eol;
}

file.close();