I invoke my program with the name of a text file, which gets put into argv[2 & 4] (there's two files). I then need this name to get passed into a function. Would it be better to so ifstream myFile(argv[2]) then pass in an ifstream like void func(ifstream myFile, ifstream myOtherFile) or should I pass in the argv[2 & 4] itself like void func(char* nameOne, char* nameTwo)? If the second way, is that the correct way I would pass that in?
The files are only used within the scope of that function, so I can open and close them in the function, or open them, pass them into the function, then close them after returning from the function. I just would like to know which way would make more sense. Thanks
RAII is thematic C++ resource management - whenever possible have the } handle clean-up. In your case, this guideline suggests that an automatic duration ifstream, which only lives in the scope of func, is preferable since it closes the file on destruction. Since ifstream is move only, you could call func as func(ifstream(argv[2]), ifstream(argv[4])).