Ifstream is opening the file, but doesn't output the lines inside the file

Question

Im new to c++ and i was trying to open a ".txt" file using ifstream. the file im using is called "ola.txt" which literally just contains two lines of text without punctuation just plain and simple text. The code that i wrote is this

#include <iostream>

#include <vector>

#include <fstream>

#include <iomanip>

#include <string>

using namespace std;
 int main()
{
    int x;
    string line;
    vector<int> vect;

    ifstream inFile("C:\\Users\\ruial\\Desktop\\ola.txt");

    inFile.open("C:\\Users\\ruial\\Desktop\\ola.txt");
    if (inFile.is_open()) {
        while (getline(inFile, line))
        {
            cout << line << '\n';
        }
        inFile.close();
    }
    else {
        cout << "Unable to open file";
        exit(1); // terminate with error
    }

    return 0;
}

The path to the file that i wrote is correct such that the file opens, but when the program runs it doesn´t cout the lines that i wrote on the txt file to the cmd, i dont know if this is somewhat important but im coding in visual studio 2019. I can't seem to find the answer to this problem anywhere in the internet and to be honest i think im doing it right, any help would be much appreciated,thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You are trying to open the inFile twice. First time during inFile construction, ifstream inFile("C:\\Users\\ruial\\Desktop\\ola.txt"), second time you try to open it again with inFile.open("C:\\Users\\ruial\\Desktop\\ola.txt"), when it's already open, which is erroneous, and flags the stream as no longer good.

3 possible fixes:

1. Remove inFile.open("C:\\Users\\ruial\\Desktop\\ola.txt")
2. Use default constructor, without specifying the file name
3. inFile.close() before you open it again (obviously, not the nicest fix).