C++ Files and Streams

So far, we have been using the iostream standard library, which provides cinand cout methods for reading from standard input and writing to standard output respectively.

This tutorial will teach you how to read and write from a file. This requires another standard C++ library called fstream, which defines three new data types:

Data Type	Description
ofstream	This data type represents the output file stream and is used to create files and to write information to files.
ifstream	This data type represents the input file stream and is used to read information from files.
fstream	This data type represents the file stream generally, and has the capabilities of both ofstream and ifstream which means it can create files, write information to files, and read information from files.

To perform file processing in C++, header files <iostream> and <fstream> must be included in your C++ source file.

Opening a File:

A file must be opened before you can read from it or write to it. Either theofstream or fstream object may be used to open a file for writing and ifstream object is used to open a file for reading purpose only.

Following is the standard syntax for open() function, which is a member of fstream, ifstream, and ofstream objects.

void open(const char *filename, ios::openmode mode);

Here, the first argument specifies the name and location of the file to be opened and the second argument of the open() member function defines the mode in which the file should be opened.

Mode Flag	Description
ios::app	Append mode. All output to that file to be appended to the end.
ios::ate	Open a file for output and move the read/write control to the end of the file.
ios::in	Open a file for reading.
ios::out	Open a file for writing.
ios::trunc	If the file already exists, its contents will be truncated before opening the file.

You can combine two or more of these values by ORing them together. For example if you want to open a file in write mode and want to truncate it in case it already exists, following will be the syntax:

ofstream outfile;
outfile.open("file.dat", ios::out | ios::trunc );

Similar way, you can open a file for reading and writing purpose as follows:

fstream  afile;
afile.open("file.dat", ios::out | ios::in );

Closing a File

When a C++ program terminates it automatically closes flushes all the streams, release all the allocated memory and close all the opened files. But it is always a good practice that a programmer should close all the opened files before program termination.

Following is the standard syntax for close() function, which is a member of fstream, ifstream, and ofstream objects.

void close();

Writing to a File:

While doing C++ programming, you write information to a file from your program using the stream insertion operator (<<) just as you use that operator to output information to the screen. The only difference is that you use anofstream or fstream object instead of the cout object.

Reading from a File:

You read information from a file into your program using the stream extraction operator (>>) just as you use that operator to input information from the keyboard. The only difference is that you use an ifstream or fstream object instead of the cin object.

Read & Write Example:

Following is the C++ program which opens a file in reading and writing mode. After writing information inputted by the user to a file named afile.dat, the program reads information from the file and outputs it onto the screen:

#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
 
int main ()
{
    
   char data[100];

   // open a file in write mode.
   ofstream outfile;
   outfile.open("afile.dat");

   cout << "Writing to the file" << endl;
   cout << "Enter your name: "; 
   cin.getline(data, 100);

   // write inputted data into the file.
   outfile << data << endl;

   cout << "Enter your age: "; 
   cin >> data;
   cin.ignore();
   
   // again write inputted data into the file.
   outfile << data << endl;

   // close the opened file.
   outfile.close();

   // open a file in read mode.
   ifstream infile; 
   infile.open("afile.dat"); 
 
   cout << "Reading from the file" << endl; 
   infile >> data; 

   // write the data at the screen.
   cout << data << endl;
   
   // again read the data from the file and display it.
   infile >> data; 
   cout << data << endl; 

   // close the opened file.
   infile.close();

   return 0;
}

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following sample input and output:

$./a.out
Writing to the file
Enter your name: Zara
Enter your age: 9
Reading from the file
Zara
9

Above examples make use of additional functions from cin object, like getline() function to read the line from outside and ignore() function to ignore the extra characters left by previous read statement.

File Position Pointers:

Both istream and ostream provide member functions for repositioning the file-position pointer. These member functions are seekg (“seek get”) for istream and seekp (“seek put”) for ostream.

The argument to seekg and seekp normally is a long integer. A second argument can be specified to indicate the seek direction. The seek direction can be ios::beg (the default) for positioning relative to the beginning of a stream,ios::cur for positioning relative to the current position in a stream or ios::endfor positioning relative to the end of a stream.

The file-position pointer is an integer value that specifies the location in the file as a number of bytes from the file’s starting location. Some examples of positioning the “get” file-position pointer are:

// position to the nth byte of fileObject (assumes ios::beg)
fileObject.seekg( n );

// position n bytes forward in fileObject
fileObject.seekg( n, ios::cur );

// position n bytes back from end of fileObject
fileObject.seekg( n, ios::end );

// position at end of fileObject
fileObject.seekg( 0, ios::end );

C++ Exception Handling

An exception is a problem that arises during the execution of a program. A C++ exception is a response to an exceptional circumstance that arises while a program is running, such as an attempt to divide by zero.

Exceptions provide a way to transfer control from one part of a program to another. C++ exception handling is built upon three keywords: try, catch, andthrow.

throw: A program throws an exception when a problem shows up. This is done using a throw keyword.
catch: A program catches an exception with an exception handler at the place in a program where you want to handle the problem. Thecatch keyword indicates the catching of an exception.
try: A try block identifies a block of code for which particular exceptions will be activated. It’s followed by one or more catch blocks.

Assuming a block will raise an exception, a method catches an exception using a combination of the try and catch keywords. A try/catch block is placed around the code that might generate an exception. Code within a try/catch block is referred to as protected code, and the syntax for using try/catch looks like the following:

try
{
   // protected code
}catch( ExceptionName e1 )
{
   // catch block
}catch( ExceptionName e2 )
{
   // catch block
}catch( ExceptionName eN )
{
   // catch block
}

You can list down multiple catch statements to catch different type of exceptions in case your try block raises more than one exception in different situations.

Throwing Exceptions:

Exceptions can be thrown anywhere within a code block using throwstatements. The operand of the throw statements determines a type for the exception and can be any expression and the type of the result of the expression determines the type of exception thrown.

Following is an example of throwing an exception when dividing by zero condition occurs:

double division(int a, int b)
{
   if( b == 0 )
   {
      throw "Division by zero condition!";
   }
   return (a/b);
}

Catching Exceptions:

The catch block following the try block catches any exception. You can specify what type of exception you want to catch and this is determined by the exception declaration that appears in parentheses following the keyword catch.

try
{
   // protected code
}catch( ExceptionName e )
{
  // code to handle ExceptionName exception
}

Above code will catch an exception of ExceptionName type. If you want to specify that a catch block should handle any type of exception that is thrown in a try block, you must put an ellipsis, …, between the parentheses enclosing the exception declaration as follows:

try
{
   // protected code
}catch(...)
{
  // code to handle any exception
}

The following is an example, which throws a division by zero exception and we catch it in catch block.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

double division(int a, int b)
{
   if( b == 0 )
   {
      throw "Division by zero condition!";
   }
   return (a/b);
}

int main ()
{
   int x = 50;
   int y = 0;
   double z = 0;
 
   try {
     z = division(x, y);
     cout << z << endl;
   }catch (const char* msg) {
     cerr << msg << endl;
   }

   return 0;
}

Because we are raising an exception of type const char*, so while catching this exception, we have to use const char* in catch block. If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

Division by zero condition!

C++ Standard Exceptions:

C++ provides a list of standard exceptions defined in <exception> which we can use in our programs. These are arranged in a parent-child class hierarchy shown below:

C++ Exceptions Hierarchy

Here is the small description of each exception mentioned in the above hierarchy:

Exception	Description
std::exception	An exception and parent class of all the standard C++ exceptions.
std::bad_alloc	This can be thrown by new.
std::bad_cast	This can be thrown by dynamic_cast.
std::bad_exception	This is useful device to handle unexpected exceptions in a C++ program
std::bad_typeid	This can be thrown by typeid.
std::logic_error	An exception that theoretically can be detected by reading the code.
std::domain_error	This is an exception thrown when a mathematically invalid domain is used
std::invalid_argument	This is thrown due to invalid arguments.
std::length_error	This is thrown when a too big std::string is created
std::out_of_range	This can be thrown by the at method from for example a std::vector and std::bitset<>::operator[]().
std::runtime_error	An exception that theoretically can not be detected by reading the code.
std::overflow_error	This is thrown if a mathematical overflow occurs.
std::range_error	This is occured when you try to store a value which is out of range.
std::underflow_error	This is thrown if a mathematical underflow occurs.

Define New Exceptions:

You can define your own exceptions by inheriting and overriding exceptionclass functionality. Following is the example, which shows how you can use std::exception class to implement your own exception in standard way:

#include <iostream>
#include <exception>
using namespace std;

struct MyException : public exception
{
  const char * what () const throw ()
  {
    return "C++ Exception";
  }
};
 
int main()
{
  try
  {
    throw MyException();
  }
  catch(MyException& e)
  {
    std::cout << "MyException caught" << std::endl;
    std::cout << e.what() << std::endl;
  }
  catch(std::exception& e)
  {
    //Other errors
  }
}

This would produce the following result:

MyException caught
C++ Exception

Here, what() is a public method provided by exception class and it has been overridden by all the child exception classes. This returns the cause of an exception.

C++ Dynamic Memory

A good understanding of how dynamic memory really works in C++ is essential to becoming a good C++ programmer. Memory in your C++ program is divided into two parts:

The stack: All variables declared inside the function will take up memory from the stack.
The heap: This is unused memory of the program and can be used to allocate the memory dynamically when program runs.

Many times, you are not aware in advance how much memory you will need to store particular information in a defined variable and the size of required memory can be determined at run time.

You can allocate memory at run time within the heap for the variable of a given type using a special operator in C++ which returns the address of the space allocated. This operator is called new operator.

If you are not in need of dynamically allocated memory anymore, you can usedelete operator, which de-allocates memory previously allocated by new operator.

The new and delete operators:

There is following generic syntax to use new operator to allocate memory dynamically for any data-type.

new data-type;

Here, data-type could be any built-in data type including an array or any user defined data types include class or structure. Let us start with built-in data types. For example we can define a pointer to type double and then request that the memory be allocated at execution time. We can do this using the newoperator with the following statements:

double* pvalue  = NULL; // Pointer initialized with null
pvalue  = new double;   // Request memory for the variable

The memory may not have been allocated successfully, if the free store had been used up. So it is good practice to check if new operator is returning NULL pointer and take appropriate action as below:

double* pvalue  = NULL;
if( !(pvalue  = new double ))
{
   cout << "Error: out of memory." <<endl;
   exit(1);

}

The malloc() function from C, still exists in C++, but it is recommended to avoid using malloc() function. The main advantage of new over malloc() is that new doesn’t just allocate memory, it constructs objects which is prime purpose of C++.

At any point, when you feel a variable that has been dynamically allocated is not anymore required, you can free up the memory that it occupies in the free store with the delete operator as follows:

delete pvalue;        // Release memory pointed to by pvalue

Let us put above concepts and form the following example to show how new and delete work:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main ()
{
   double* pvalue  = NULL; // Pointer initialized with null
   pvalue  = new double;   // Request memory for the variable
 
   *pvalue = 29494.99;     // Store value at allocated address
   cout << "Value of pvalue : " << *pvalue << endl;

   delete pvalue;         // free up the memory.

   return 0;
}

If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

Value of pvalue : 29495

Dynamic Memory Allocation for Arrays:

Consider you want to allocate memory for an array of characters, i.e., string of 20 characters. Using the same syntax what we have used above we can allocate memory dynamically as shown below.

char* pvalue  = NULL;   // Pointer initialized with null
pvalue  = new char[20]; // Request memory for the variable

To remove the array that we have just created the statement would look like this:

delete [] pvalue;        // Delete array pointed to by pvalue

Following the similar generic syntax of new operator, you can allocat for a multi-dimensional array as follows:

double** pvalue  = NULL;     // Pointer initialized with null
pvalue  = new double [3][4]; // Allocate memory for a 3x4 array

However, the syntax to release the memory for multi-dimensional array will still remain same as above:

delete [] pvalue;        // Delete array pointed to by pvalue

Dynamic Memory Allocation for Objects:

Objects are no different from simple data types. For example, consider the following code where we are going to use an array of objects to clarify the concept:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

class Box
{
   public:
      Box() { 
         cout << "Constructor called!" <<endl; 
      }
      ~Box() { 
         cout << "Destructor called!" <<endl; 
      }
};

int main( )
{
   Box* myBoxArray = new Box[4];

   delete [] myBoxArray; // Delete array

   return 0;
}

If you were to allocate an array of four Box objects, the Simple constructor would be called four times and similarly while deleting these objects, destructor will also be called same number of times.

If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

Constructor called!
Constructor called!
Constructor called!
Constructor called!
Destructor called!
Destructor called!
Destructor called!
Destructor called!

Namespaces in C++

Consider a situation, when we have two persons with the same name, Zara, in the same class. Whenever we need to differentiate them definitely we would have to use some additional information along with their name, like either the area if they live in different area or their mother or father name, etc.

Same situation can arise in your C++ applications. For example, you might be writing some code that has a function called xyz() and there is another library available which is also having same function xyz(). Now the compiler has no way of knowing which version of xyz() function you are referring to within your code.

A namespace is designed to overcome this difficulty and is used as additional information to differentiate similar functions, classes, variables etc. with the same name available in different libraries. Using namespace, you can define the context in which names are defined. In essence, a namespace defines a scope.

Defining a Namespace:

A namespace definition begins with the keyword namespace followed by the namespace name as follows:

namespace namespace_name {
   // code declarations
}

To call the namespace-enabled version of either function or variable, prepend the namespace name as follows:

name::code;  // code could be variable or function.

Let us see how namespace scope the entities including variable and functions:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

// first name space
namespace first_space{
   void func(){
      cout << "Inside first_space" << endl;
   }
}
// second name space
namespace second_space{
   void func(){
      cout << "Inside second_space" << endl;
   }
}
int main ()
{
 
   // Calls function from first name space.
   first_space::func();
   
   // Calls function from second name space.
   second_space::func(); 

   return 0;
}

If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

Inside first_space
Inside second_space

The using directive:

You can also avoid prepending of namespaces with the using namespacedirective. This directive tells the compiler that the subsequent code is making use of names in the specified namespace. The namespace is thus implied for the following code:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

// first name space
namespace first_space{
   void func(){
      cout << "Inside first_space" << endl;
   }
}
// second name space
namespace second_space{
   void func(){
      cout << "Inside second_space" << endl;
   }
}
using namespace first_space;
int main ()
{
 
   // This calls function from first name space.
   func();
   
   return 0;
}

If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

Inside first_space

The using directive can also be used to refer to a particular item within a namespace. For example, if the only part of the std namespace that you intend to use is cout, you can refer to it as follows:

using std::cout;

Subsequent code can refer to cout without prepending the namespace, but other items in the std namespace will still need to be explicit as follows:

#include <iostream>
using std::cout;

int main ()
{
 
   cout << "std::endl is used with std!" << std::endl;
   
   return 0;
}

If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

std::endl is used with std!

Names introduced in a using directive obey normal scope rules. The name is visible from the point of the using directive to the end of the scope in which the directive is found. Entities with the same name defined in an outer scope are hidden.

Discontiguous Namespaces:

A namespace can be defined in several parts and so a namespace is made up of the sum of its separately defined parts. The separate parts of a namespace can be spread over multiple files.

So, if one part of the namespace requires a name defined in another file, that name must still be declared. Writing a following namespace definition either defines a new namespace or adds new elements to an existing one:

namespace namespace_name {
   // code declarations
}

Nested Namespaces:

Namespaces can be nested where you can define one namespace inside another name space as follows:

namespace namespace_name1 {
   // code declarations
   namespace namespace_name2 {
      // code declarations
   }
}

You can access members of nested namespace by using resultion operators as follows:

// to access members of namespace_name2
using namespace namespace_name1::namespace_name2;

// to access members of namespace:name1
using namespace namespace_name1;

In the above statements if you are using namespace_name1, then it will make elements of namespace_name2 available in the scope as follows:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

// first name space
namespace first_space{
   void func(){
      cout << "Inside first_space" << endl;
   }
   // second name space
   namespace second_space{
      void func(){
         cout << "Inside second_space" << endl;
      }
   }
}
using namespace first_space::second_space;
int main ()
{
 
   // This calls function from second name space.
   func();
   
   return 0;
}

If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

Inside second_space

C++ Templates

Templates are the foundation of generic programming, which involves writing code in a way that is independent of any particular type.

A template is a blueprint or formula for creating a generic class or a function. The library containers like iterators and algorithms are examples of generic programming and have been developed using template concept.

There is a single definition of each container, such as vector, but we can define many different kinds of vectors for example, vector <int> or vector <string>.

You can use templates to define functions as well as classes, let us see how do they work:

Function Template:

The general form of a template function definition is shown here:

template <class type> ret-type func-name(parameter list)
{
   // body of function
}

Here, type is a placeholder name for a data type used by the function. This name can be used within the function definition.

The following is the example of a function template that returns the maximum of two values:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

template <typename T>
inline T const& Max (T const& a, T const& b) 
{ 
    return a < b ? b:a; 
} 
int main ()
{
 
    int i = 39;
    int j = 20;
    cout << "Max(i, j): " << Max(i, j) << endl; 

    double f1 = 13.5; 
    double f2 = 20.7; 
    cout << "Max(f1, f2): " << Max(f1, f2) << endl; 

    string s1 = "Hello"; 
    string s2 = "World"; 
    cout << "Max(s1, s2): " << Max(s1, s2) << endl; 

   return 0;
}

If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

Max(i, j): 39
Max(f1, f2): 20.7
Max(s1, s2): World

Class Template:

Just as we can define function templates, we can also define class templates. The general form of a generic class declaration is shown here:

template <class type> class class-name {
.
.
.
}

Here, type is the placeholder type name, which will be specified when a class is instantiated. You can define more than one generic data type by using a comma-separated list.

Following is the example to define class Stack<> and implement generic methods to push and pop the elements from the stack:

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <string>
#include <stdexcept>

using namespace std;

template <class T>
class Stack { 
  private: 
    vector<T> elems;     // elements 

  public: 
    void push(T const&);  // push element 
    void pop();               // pop element 
    T top() const;            // return top element 
    bool empty() const{       // return true if empty.
        return elems.empty(); 
    } 
}; 

template <class T>
void Stack<T>::push (T const& elem) 
{ 
    // append copy of passed element 
    elems.push_back(elem);    
} 

template <class T>
void Stack<T>::pop () 
{ 
    if (elems.empty()) { 
        throw out_of_range("Stack<>::pop(): empty stack"); 
    }
	// remove last element 
    elems.pop_back();         
} 

template <class T>
T Stack<T>::top () const 
{ 
    if (elems.empty()) { 
        throw out_of_range("Stack<>::top(): empty stack"); 
    }
	// return copy of last element 
    return elems.back();      
} 

int main() 
{ 
    try { 
        Stack<int>         intStack;  // stack of ints 
        Stack<string> stringStack;    // stack of strings 

        // manipulate int stack 
        intStack.push(7); 
        cout << intStack.top() <<endl; 

        // manipulate string stack 
        stringStack.push("hello"); 
        cout << stringStack.top() << std::endl; 
        stringStack.pop(); 
        stringStack.pop(); 
    } 
    catch (exception const& ex) { 
        cerr << "Exception: " << ex.what() <<endl; 
        return -1;
    } 
}

If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

7
hello
Exception: Stack<>::pop(): empty stack

C++ Preprocessor

The preprocessors are the directives, which give instruction to the compiler to preprocess the information before actual compilation starts.

All preprocessor directives begin with #, and only white-space characters may appear before a preprocessor directive on a line. Preprocessor directives are not C++ statements, so they do not end in a semicolon (;).

You already have seen a #include directive in all the examples. This macro is used to include a header file into the source file.

There are number of preprocessor directives supported by C++ like #include, #define, #if, #else, #line, etc. Let us see important directives:

The #define Preprocessor:

The #define preprocessor directive creates symbolic constants. The symbolic constant is called a macro and the general form of the directive is:

#define macro-name replacement-text

When this line appears in a file, all subsequent occurrences of macro in that file will be replaced by replacement-text before the program is compiled. For example:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

#define PI 3.14159

int main ()
{
 
    cout << "Value of PI :" << PI << endl; 

    return 0;
}

Now, let us do the preprocessing of this code to see the result, assume we have source code file, so let us compile it with -E option and redirect the result to test.p. Now, if you will check test.p, it will have lots of information and at the bottom, you will fine the value replaced as follows:

$gcc -E test.cpp > test.p

...
int main ()
{
 
    cout << "Value of PI :" << 3.14159 << endl; 

    return 0;
}

Function-Like Macros:

You can use #define to define a macro which will take argument as follows:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

#define MIN(a,b) (((a)<(b)) ? a : b)

int main ()
{
   int i, j;
   i = 100;
   j = 30;
   cout <<"The minimum is " << MIN(i, j) << endl;

    return 0;
}

If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

The minimum is 30

Conditional Compilation:

There are several directives, which can use to compile selectively portions of your program’s source code. This process is called conditional compilation.

The conditional preprocessor construct is much like the if selection structure. Consider the following preprocessor code:

#ifndef NULL
   #define NULL 0
#endif

You can compile a program for debugging purpose and can debugging turn on or off using a single macro as follows:

#ifdef DEBUG
   cerr <<"Variable x = " << x << endl;
#endif

causes the cerr statement to be compiled in the program if the symbolic constant DEBUG has been defined before directive #ifdef DEBUG. You can use #if 0 statment to comment out a portion of the program as follows:

#if 0
   code prevented from compiling
#endif

Let us try the following example:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
#define DEBUG

#define MIN(a,b) (((a)<(b)) ? a : b)

int main ()
{
   int i, j;
   i = 100;
   j = 30;
#ifdef DEBUG
   cerr <<"Trace: Inside main function" << endl;
#endif

#if 0
   /* This is commented part */
   cout << MKSTR(HELLO C++) << endl;
#endif

   cout <<"The minimum is " << MIN(i, j) << endl;

#ifdef DEBUG
   cerr <<"Trace: Coming out of main function" << endl;
#endif
    return 0;
}

If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

Trace: Inside main function
The minimum is 30
Trace: Coming out of main function

The # and ## Operators:

The # and ## preprocessor operators are available in C++ and ANSI/ISO C. The # operator causes a replacement-text token to be converted to a string surrounded by quotes.

Consider the following macro definition:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

#define MKSTR( x ) #x

int main ()
{
    cout << MKSTR(HELLO C++) << endl;

    return 0;
}

If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

HELLO C++

Let us see how it worked. It is simple to understand that the C++ preprocessor turns the line:

  cout << MKSTR(HELLO C++) << endl;

into the following line:

  cout << "HELLO C++" << endl;

The ## operator is used to concatenate two tokens. Here is an example:

#define CONCAT( x, y )  x ## y

When CONCAT appears in the program, its arguments are concatenated and used to replace the macro. For example, CONCAT(HELLO, C++) is replaced by “HELLO C++” in the program as follows.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

#define concat(a, b) a ## b
int main()
{
   int xy = 100;
   
   cout << concat(x, y);
   return 0;
}

If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

Let us see how it worked. It is simple to understand that the C++ preprocessor transforms:

  cout << concat(x, y);

into the following line:

  cout << xy;

Predefined C++ Macros:

C++ provides a number of predefined macros mentioned below:

Macro	Description
__LINE__	This contain the current line number of the program when it is being compiled.
__FILE__	This contain the current file name of the program when it is being compiled.
__DATE__	This contains a string of the form month/day/year that is the date of the translation of the source file into object code.
__TIME__	This contains a string of the form hour:minute:second that is the time at which the program was compiled.

Let us see an example for all the above macros:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main ()
{
    cout << "Value of __LINE__ : " << __LINE__ << endl;
    cout << "Value of __FILE__ : " << __FILE__ << endl;
    cout << "Value of __DATE__ : " << __DATE__ << endl;
    cout << "Value of __TIME__ : " << __TIME__ << endl;

    return 0;
}

If we compile and run above code, this would produce the following result:

Value of __LINE__ : 6
Value of __FILE__ : test.cpp
Value of __DATE__ : Feb 28 2011
Value of __TIME__ : 18:52:48

C++ Signal Handling

Signals are the interrupts delivered to a process by the operating system which can terminate a program prematurely. You can generate interrupts by pressing Ctrl+C on a UNIX, LINUX, Mac OS X or Windows system.

There are signals which can not be caught by the program but there is a following list of signals which you can catch in your program and can take appropriate actions based on the signal. These signals are defined in C++ header file <csignal>.

Signal	Description
SIGABRT	Abnormal termination of the program, such as a call to abort
SIGFPE	An erroneous arithmetic operation, such as a divide by zero or an operation resulting in overflow.
SIGILL	Detection of an illegal instruction
SIGINT	Receipt of an interactive attention signal.
SIGSEGV	An invalid access to storage.
SIGTERM	A termination request sent to the program.

The signal() function:

C++ signal-handling library provides function signal to trap unexpected events. Following is the syntax of the signal() function:

void (*signal (int sig, void (*func)(int)))(int);

Keeping it simple, this function receives two arguments: first argument as an integer which represents signal number and second argument as a pointer to the signal-handling function.

Let us write a simple C++ program where we will catch SIGINT signal using signal() function. Whatever signal you want to catch in your program, you must register that signal using signal function and associate it with a signal handler. Examine the following example:

#include <iostream>
#include <csignal>

using namespace std;

void signalHandler( int signum )
{
    cout << "Interrupt signal (" << signum << ") received.\n";

    // cleanup and close up stuff here  
    // terminate program  

   exit(signum);  

}

int main ()
{
    // register signal SIGINT and signal handler  
    signal(SIGINT, signalHandler);  

    while(1){
       cout << "Going to sleep...." << endl;
       sleep(1);
    }

    return 0;
}

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result:

Going to sleep....
Going to sleep....
Going to sleep....

Now, press Ctrl+c to interrupt the program and you will see that your program will catch the signal and would come out by printing something as follows:

Going to sleep....
Going to sleep....
Going to sleep....
Interrupt signal (2) received.

The raise() function:

You can generate signals by function raise(), which takes an integer signal number as an argument and has the following syntax.

int raise (signal sig);

Here, sig is the signal number to send any of the signals: SIGINT, SIGABRT, SIGFPE, SIGILL, SIGSEGV, SIGTERM, SIGHUP. Following is the example where we raise a signal internally using raise() function as follows:

#include <iostream>
#include <csignal>

using namespace std;

void signalHandler( int signum )
{
    cout << "Interrupt signal (" << signum << ") received.\n";

    // cleanup and close up stuff here  
    // terminate program  

   exit(signum);  

}

int main ()
{
    int i = 0;
    // register signal SIGINT and signal handler  
    signal(SIGINT, signalHandler);  

    while(++i){
       cout << "Going to sleep...." << endl;
       if( i == 3 ){
          raise( SIGINT);
       }
       sleep(1);
    }

    return 0;
}

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result and would come out automatically:

Going to sleep....
Going to sleep....
Going to sleep....
Interrupt signal (2) received.

C++ Multithreading

Multithreading is a specialized form of multitasking and a multitasking is the feature that allows your computer to run two or more programs concurrently. In general, there are two types of multitasking: process-based and thread-based.

Process-based multitasking handles the concurrent execution of programs. Thread-based multitasking deals with the concurrent execution of pieces of the same program.

A multithreaded program contains two or more parts that can run concurrently. Each part of such a program is called a thread, and each thread defines a separate path of execution.

C++ does not contain any built-in support for multithreaded applications. Instead, it relies entirely upon the operating system to provide this feature.

This tutorial assumes that you are working on Linux OS and we are going to write multi-threaded C++ program using POSIX. POSIX Threads, or Pthreads provides API which are available on many Unix-like POSIX systems such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris.

Creating Threads:

There is following routine which we use to create a POSIX thread:

#include <pthread.h>
pthread_create (thread, attr, start_routine, arg)

Here, pthread_create creates a new thread and makes it executable. This routine can be called any number of times from anywhere within your code. Here is the description of the parameters:

Parameter	Description
thread	An opaque, unique identifier for the new thread returned by the subroutine.
attr	An opaque attribute object that may be used to set thread attributes. You can specify a thread attributes object, or NULL for the default values.
start_routine	The C++ routine that the thread will execute once it is created.
arg	A single argument that may be passed to start_routine. It must be passed by reference as a pointer cast of type void. NULL may be used if no argument is to be passed.

The maximum number of threads that may be created by a process is implementation dependent. Once created, threads are peers, and may create other threads. There is no implied hierarchy or dependency between threads.

Terminating Threads:

There is following routine which we use to terminate a POSIX thread:

#include <pthread.h>
pthread_exit (status)

Here pthread_exit is used to explicitly exit a thread. Typically, the pthread_exit() routine is called after a thread has completed its work and is no longer required to exist.

If main() finishes before the threads it has created, and exits with pthread_exit(), the other threads will continue to execute. Otherwise, they will be automatically terminated when main() finishes.

Example:

This simple example code creates 5 threads with the pthread_create() routine. Each thread prints a “Hello World!” message, and then terminates with a call to pthread_exit().

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <pthread.h>

using namespace std;

#define NUM_THREADS     5

void *PrintHello(void *threadid)
{
   long tid;
   tid = (long)threadid;
   cout << "Hello World! Thread ID, " << tid << endl;
   pthread_exit(NULL);
}

int main ()
{
   pthread_t threads[NUM_THREADS];
   int rc;
   int i;
   for( i=0; i < NUM_THREADS; i++ ){
      cout << "main() : creating thread, " << i << endl;
      rc = pthread_create(&threads[i], NULL, 
                          PrintHello, (void *)i);
      if (rc){
         cout << "Error:unable to create thread," << rc << endl;
         exit(-1);
      }
   }
   pthread_exit(NULL);
}

Compile the following program using -lpthread library as follows:

$gcc test.cpp -lpthread

Now, execute your program which should generate result something as follows:

main() : creating thread, 0
main() : creating thread, 1
main() : creating thread, 2
main() : creating thread, 3
main() : creating thread, 4
Hello World! Thread ID, 0
Hello World! Thread ID, 1
Hello World! Thread ID, 2
Hello World! Thread ID, 3
Hello World! Thread ID, 4

Passing Arguments to Threads:

This example shows how to pass multiple arguments via a structure. You can pass any data type in a thread callback because it points to void as explained in the following example:

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <pthread.h>

using namespace std;

#define NUM_THREADS     5

struct thread_data{
   int  thread_id;
   char *message;
};

void *PrintHello(void *threadarg)
{
   struct thread_data *my_data;

   my_data = (struct thread_data *) threadarg;

   cout << "Thread ID : " << my_data->thread_id ;
   cout << " Message : " << my_data->message << endl;

   pthread_exit(NULL);
}

int main ()
{
   pthread_t threads[NUM_THREADS];
   struct thread_data td[NUM_THREADS];
   int rc;
   int i;

   for( i=0; i < NUM_THREADS; i++ ){
      cout <<"main() : creating thread, " << i << endl;
      td[i].thread_id = i;
      td[i].message = "This is message";
      rc = pthread_create(&threads[i], NULL,
                          PrintHello, (void *)&td[i]);
      if (rc){
         cout << "Error:unable to create thread," << rc << endl;
         exit(-1);
      }
   }
   pthread_exit(NULL);
}

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result:

main() : creating thread, 0
main() : creating thread, 1
main() : creating thread, 2
main() : creating thread, 3
main() : creating thread, 4
Thread ID : 3 Message : This is message
Thread ID : 2 Message : This is message
Thread ID : 0 Message : This is message
Thread ID : 1 Message : This is message
Thread ID : 4 Message : This is message

Joining and Detaching Threads:

There are following two routines which we can use to join or detach threads:

pthread_join (threadid, status) 
pthread_detach (threadid)

The pthread_join() subroutine blocks the calling thread until the specified threadid thread terminates. When a thread is created, one of its attributes defines whether it is joinable or detached. Only threads that are created as joinable can be joined. If a thread is created as detached, it can never be joined.

This example demonstrates how to wait for thread completions by using the Pthread join routine.

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <pthread.h>
#include <unistd.h>

using namespace std;

#define NUM_THREADS     5

void *wait(void *t)
{
   int i;
   long tid;

   tid = (long)t;

   sleep(1);
   cout << "Sleeping in thread " << endl;
   cout << "Thread with id : " << tid << "  ...exiting " << endl;
   pthread_exit(NULL);
}

int main ()
{
   int rc;
   int i;
   pthread_t threads[NUM_THREADS];
   pthread_attr_t attr;
   void *status;

   // Initialize and set thread joinable
   pthread_attr_init(&attr);
   pthread_attr_setdetachstate(&attr, PTHREAD_CREATE_JOINABLE);

   for( i=0; i < NUM_THREADS; i++ ){
      cout << "main() : creating thread, " << i << endl;
      rc = pthread_create(&threads[i], NULL, wait, (void *)i );
      if (rc){
         cout << "Error:unable to create thread," << rc << endl;
         exit(-1);
      }
   }

   // free attribute and wait for the other threads
   pthread_attr_destroy(&attr);
   for( i=0; i < NUM_THREADS; i++ ){
      rc = pthread_join(threads[i], &status);
      if (rc){
         cout << "Error:unable to join," << rc << endl;
         exit(-1);
      }
      cout << "Main: completed thread id :" << i ;
      cout << "  exiting with status :" << status << endl;
   }

   cout << "Main: program exiting." << endl;
   pthread_exit(NULL);
}

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result:

main() : creating thread, 0
main() : creating thread, 1
main() : creating thread, 2
main() : creating thread, 3
main() : creating thread, 4
Sleeping in thread
Thread with id : 0 .... exiting
Sleeping in thread
Thread with id : 1 .... exiting
Sleeping in thread
Thread with id : 2 .... exiting
Sleeping in thread
Thread with id : 3 .... exiting
Sleeping in thread
Thread with id : 4 .... exiting
Main: completed thread id :0  exiting with status :0
Main: completed thread id :1  exiting with status :0
Main: completed thread id :2  exiting with status :0
Main: completed thread id :3  exiting with status :0
Main: completed thread id :4  exiting with status :0
Main: program exiting.

C++ Web Programming

What is CGI?

The Common Gateway Interface, or CGI, is a set of standards that define how information is exchanged between the web server and a custom script.
The CGI specs are currently maintained by the NCSA and NCSA defines CGI is as follows:
The Common Gateway Interface, or CGI, is a standard for external gateway programs to interface with information servers such as HTTP servers.
The current version is CGI/1.1 and CGI/1.2 is under progress.

Web Browsing

To understand the concept of CGI, let’s see what happens when we click a hyperlink to browse a particular web page or URL.

Your browser contacts the HTTP web server and demand for the URL ie. filename.
Web Server will parse the URL and will look for the filename. If it finds requested file then web server sends that file back to the browser otherwise sends an error message indicating that you have requested a wrong file.
Web browser takes response from web server and displays either the received file or error message based on the received response.

However, it is possible to set up the HTTP server in such a way that whenever a file in a certain directory is requested, that file is not sent back; instead it is executed as a program, and produced output from the program is sent back to your browser to display.

The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard protocol for enabling applications (called CGI programs or CGI scripts) to interact with Web servers and with clients. These CGI programs can be a written in Python, PERL, Shell, C or C++ etc.

CGI Architecture Diagram

The following simple program shows a simple architecture of CGI:

CGI Architecture

Web Server Configuration

Before you proceed with CGI Programming, make sure that your Web Server supports CGI and it is configured to handle CGI Programs. All the CGI Programs to be executed by the HTTP server are kept in a pre-configured directory. This directory is called CGI directory and by convention it is named as /var/www/cgi-bin. By convention CGI files will have extension as .cgi, though they are C++ executable.

By default, Apache Web Server is configured to run CGI programs in /var/www/cgi-bin. If you want to specify any other directory to run your CGI scripts, you can modify the following section in the httpd.conf file:

<Directory "/var/www/cgi-bin">
   AllowOverride None
   Options ExecCGI
   Order allow,deny
   Allow from all
</Directory>
 
<Directory "/var/www/cgi-bin">
Options All
</Directory>

Here, I assumed that you have Web Server up and running successfully and you are able to run any other CGI program like Perl or Shell etc.

First CGI Program

Consider the following C++ Program content:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
 
int main ()
{
    
   cout << "Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n";
   cout << "<html>\n";
   cout << "<head>\n";
   cout << "<title>Hello World - First CGI Program</title>\n";
   cout << "</head>\n";
   cout << "<body>\n";
   cout << "<h2>Hello World! This is my first CGI program</h2>\n";
   cout << "</body>\n";
   cout << "</html>\n";
   
   return 0;
}

Compile above code and name the executable as cplusplus.cgi. This file is being kept in /var/www/cgi-bin directory and it has following content. Before running your CGI program make sure you have change mode of file using chmod 755 cplusplus.cgi UNIX command to make file executable. Now if you clickcplusplus.cgi then this produces the following output:

Hello World! This is my first CGI program

Above C++ program is a simple program which is writing its output on STDOUT file ie. screen. There is one important and extra feature available which is first line to be printed Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n. This line is sent back to the browser and specify the content type to be displayed on the browser screen. Now you must have understood basic concept of CGI and you can write many complicated CGI programs using Python. A C++ CGI program can interact with any other exernal system, such as RDBMS, to exchange information.

HTTP Header

The line Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n is part of HTTP header, which is sent to the browser to understand the content. All the HTTP header will be in the following form

HTTP Field Name: Field Content
 
For Example
Content-type: text/html\r\n\r\n

There are few other important HTTP headers, which you will use frequently in your CGI Programming.

Header	Description
Content-type:	A MIME string defining the format of the file being returned. Example is Content-type:text/html
Expires: Date	The date the information becomes invalid. This should be used by the browser to decide when a page needs to be refreshed. A valid date string should be in the format 01 Jan 1998 12:00:00 GMT.
Location: URL	The URL that should be returned instead of the URL requested. You can use this filed to redirect a request to any file.
Last-modified: Date	The date of last modification of the resource.
Content-length: N	The length, in bytes, of the data being returned. The browser uses this value to report the estimated download time for a file.
Set-Cookie: String	Set the cookie passed through the string

CGI Environment Variables

All the CGI program will have access to the following environment variables. These variables play an important role while writing any CGI program.

Variable Name	Description
CONTENT_TYPE	The data type of the content. Used when the client is sending attached content to the server. For example file upload etc.
CONTENT_LENGTH	The length of the query information. It’s available only for POST requests
HTTP_COOKIE	Return the set cookies in the form of key & value pair.
HTTP_USER_AGENT	The User-Agent request-header field contains information about the user agent originating the request. Its name of the web browser.
PATH_INFO	The path for the CGI script.
QUERY_STRING	The URL-encoded information that is sent with GET method request.
REMOTE_ADDR	The IP address of the remote host making the request. This can be useful for logging or for authentication purpose.
REMOTE_HOST	The fully qualified name of the host making the request. If this information is not available then REMOTE_ADDR can be used to get IR address.
REQUEST_METHOD	The method used to make the request. The most common methods are GET and POST.
SCRIPT_FILENAME	The full path to the CGI script.
SCRIPT_NAME	The name of the CGI script.
SERVER_NAME	The server’s hostname or IP Address
SERVER_SOFTWARE	The name and version of the software the server is running.

Here is small CGI program to list out all the CGI variables.

#include <iostream>
#include <stdlib.h>
using namespace std;

const string ENV[ 24 ] = {                 
        "COMSPEC", "DOCUMENT_ROOT", "GATEWAY_INTERFACE",   
        "HTTP_ACCEPT", "HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING",             
        "HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE", "HTTP_CONNECTION",         
        "HTTP_HOST", "HTTP_USER_AGENT", "PATH",            
        "QUERY_STRING", "REMOTE_ADDR", "REMOTE_PORT",      
        "REQUEST_METHOD", "REQUEST_URI", "SCRIPT_FILENAME",
        "SCRIPT_NAME", "SERVER_ADDR", "SERVER_ADMIN",      
        "SERVER_NAME","SERVER_PORT","SERVER_PROTOCOL",     
        "SERVER_SIGNATURE","SERVER_SOFTWARE" };   

int main ()
{
    
   cout << "Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n";
   cout << "<html>\n";
   cout << "<head>\n";
   cout << "<title>CGI Envrionment Variables</title>\n";
   cout << "</head>\n";
   cout << "<body>\n";
   cout << "<table border = \"0\" cellspacing = \"2\">";

   for ( int i = 0; i < 24; i++ )
   {
       cout << "<tr><td>" << ENV[ i ] << "</td><td>";
       // attempt to retrieve value of environment variable
       char *value = getenv( ENV[ i ].c_str() );  
       if ( value != 0 ){
         cout << value;                                 
       }else{
         cout << "Environment variable does not exist.";
       }
       cout << "</td></tr>\n";
   }
   cout << "</table><\n";
   cout << "</body>\n";
   cout << "</html>\n";
   
   return 0;
}

C++ CGI Library

For real examples, you would need to do many operations by your CGI program. There is a CGI library written for C++ program which you can download from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/cgicc/ and following the following steps to install the library:

$tar xzf cgicc-X.X.X.tar.gz 
$cd cgicc-X.X.X/ 
$./configure --prefix=/usr 
$make
$make install

GET and POST Methods

You must have come across many situations when you need to pass some information from your browser to web server and ultimately to your CGI Program. Most frequently browser uses two methods two pass this information to web server. These methods are GET Method and POST Method.

Passing Information using GET method:

The GET method sends the encoded user information appended to the page request. The page and the encoded information are separated by the ? character as follows:

http://www.test.com/cgi-bin/cpp.cgi?key1=value1&key2=value2

The GET method is the default method to pass information from browser to web server and it produces a long string that appears in your browser’s Location:box. Never use the GET method if you have password or other sensitive information to pass to the server. The GET method has size limitation and you can pass upto 1024 characters in a request string.

When using GET method, information is passed using QUERY_STRING http header and will be accessible in your CGI Program through QUERY_STRING environment variable

You can pass information by simply concatenating key and value pairs alongwith any URL or you can use HTML <FORM> tags to pass information using GET method.

Simple URL Example : Get Method

Here is a simple URL which will pass two values to hello_get.py program using GET method.

/cgi-bin/cpp_get.cgi?first_name=ZARA&last_name=ALI

Below is program to generate cpp_get.cgi CGI program to handle input given by web browser. We are going to use C++ CGI library which makes it very easy to access passed information:

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>  
#include <string>  
#include <stdio.h>  
#include <stdlib.h> 

#include <cgicc/CgiDefs.h> 
#include <cgicc/Cgicc.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTTPHTMLHeader.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTMLClasses.h>  

using namespace std;
using namespace cgicc;

int main ()
{
   Cgicc formData;
   
   cout << "Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n";
   cout << "<html>\n";
   cout << "<head>\n";
   cout << "<title>Using GET and POST Methods</title>\n";
   cout << "</head>\n";
   cout << "<body>\n";

   form_iterator fi = formData.getElement("first_name");  
   if( !fi->isEmpty() && fi != (*formData).end()) {  
      cout << "First name: " << **fi << endl;  
   }else{
      cout << "No text entered for first name" << endl;  
   }
   cout << "<br/>\n";
   fi = formData.getElement("last_name");  
   if( !fi->isEmpty() &&fi != (*formData).end()) {  
      cout << "Last name: " << **fi << endl;  
   }else{
      cout << "No text entered for last name" << endl;  
   }
   cout << "<br/>\n";

   cout << "</body>\n";
   cout << "</html>\n";
   
   return 0;
}

Now, compile the above program as follows:

$g++ -o cpp_get.cgi cpp_get.cpp -lcgicc

Generate cpp_get.cgi and put it in your CGI directory and try to access using following path:

/cgi-bin/cpp_get.cgi?first_name=ZARA&last_name=ALI

This would generate following result:

First name: ZARA 
Last name: ALI

Simple FORM Example: GET Method

Here is a simple example which passes two values using HTML FORM and submit button. We are going to use same CGI script cpp_get.cgi to handle this input.

<form action="/cgi-bin/cpp_get.cgi" method="get">
First Name: <input type="text" name="first_name">  <br />
 
Last Name: <input type="text" name="last_name" />
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

Here is the actual output of the above form, You enter First and Last Name and then click submit button to see the result.

First Name:
Last Name:

Passing Information using POST method:

A generally more reliable method of passing information to a CGI program is the POST method. This packages the information in exactly the same way as GET methods, but instead of sending it as a text string after a ? in the URL it sends it as a separate message. This message comes into the CGI script in the form of the standard input.

The same cpp_get.cgi program will handle POST method as well. Let us take same example as above, which passes two values using HTML FORM and submit button but this time with POST method as follows:

<form action="/cgi-bin/cpp_get.cgi" method="post">
First Name: <input type="text" name="first_name"><br />
Last Name: <input type="text" name="last_name" />
 
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

Here is the actual output of the above form, You enter First and Last Name and then click submit button to see the result.

First Name:
Last Name:

Passing Checkbox Data to CGI Program

Checkboxes are used when more than one option is required to be selected.

Here is example HTML code for a form with two checkboxes

<form action="/cgi-bin/cpp_checkbox.cgi" 
         method="POST" 
         target="_blank">
<input type="checkbox" name="maths" value="on" /> Maths
<input type="checkbox" name="physics" value="on" /> Physics
<input type="submit" value="Select Subject" />
</form>

The result of this code is the following form

Maths Physics Below is C++ program, which will generate cpp_checkbox.cgi script to handle input given by web browser through checkbox button.

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>  
#include <string>  
#include <stdio.h>  
#include <stdlib.h> 

#include <cgicc/CgiDefs.h> 
#include <cgicc/Cgicc.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTTPHTMLHeader.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTMLClasses.h> 

using namespace std;
using namespace cgicc;

int main ()
{
   Cgicc formData;
   bool maths_flag, physics_flag;

   cout << "Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n";
   cout << "<html>\n";
   cout << "<head>\n";
   cout << "<title>Checkbox Data to CGI</title>\n";
   cout << "</head>\n";
   cout << "<body>\n";

   maths_flag = formData.queryCheckbox("maths");
   if( maths_flag ) {  
      cout << "Maths Flag: ON " << endl;  
   }else{
      cout << "Maths Flag: OFF " << endl;  
   }
   cout << "<br/>\n";

   physics_flag = formData.queryCheckbox("physics");
   if( physics_flag ) {  
      cout << "Physics Flag: ON " << endl;  
   }else{
      cout << "Physics Flag: OFF " << endl;  
   }
   cout << "<br/>\n";
   cout << "</body>\n";
   cout << "</html>\n";
   
   return 0;
}

Passing Radio Button Data to CGI Program

Radio Buttons are used when only one option is required to be selected.

Here is example HTML code for a form with two radio button:

<form action="/cgi-bin/cpp_radiobutton.cgi" 
         method="post" 
         target="_blank">
<input type="radio" name="subject" value="maths" 
                                    checked="checked"/> Maths 
<input type="radio" name="subject" value="physics" /> Physics
<input type="submit" value="Select Subject" />
</form>

The result of this code is the following form

Maths Physics Below is C++ program, which will generate cpp_radiobutton.cgi script to handle input given by web browser through radio buttons.

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>  
#include <string>  
#include <stdio.h>  
#include <stdlib.h> 

#include <cgicc/CgiDefs.h> 
#include <cgicc/Cgicc.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTTPHTMLHeader.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTMLClasses.h> 

using namespace std;
using namespace cgicc;

int main ()
{
   Cgicc formData;
  
   cout << "Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n";
   cout << "<html>\n";
   cout << "<head>\n";
   cout << "<title>Radio Button Data to CGI</title>\n";
   cout << "</head>\n";
   cout << "<body>\n";

   form_iterator fi = formData.getElement("subject");  
   if( !fi->isEmpty() && fi != (*formData).end()) {  
      cout << "Radio box selected: " << **fi << endl;  
   }
  
   cout << "<br/>\n";
   cout << "</body>\n";
   cout << "</html>\n";
   
   return 0;
}

Passing Text Area Data to CGI Program

TEXTAREA element is used when multiline text has to be passed to the CGI Program.

Here is example HTML code for a form with a TEXTAREA box:

<form action="/cgi-bin/cpp_textarea.cgi" 
         method="post" 
         target="_blank">
<textarea name="textcontent" cols="40" rows="4">
Type your text here...
</textarea>
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

The result of this code is the following form

Below is C++ program, which will generate cpp_textarea.cgi script to handle input given by web browser through text area.

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>  
#include <string>  
#include <stdio.h>  
#include <stdlib.h> 

#include <cgicc/CgiDefs.h> 
#include <cgicc/Cgicc.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTTPHTMLHeader.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTMLClasses.h> 

using namespace std;
using namespace cgicc;

int main ()
{
   Cgicc formData;
  
   cout << "Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n";
   cout << "<html>\n";
   cout << "<head>\n";
   cout << "<title>Text Area Data to CGI</title>\n";
   cout << "</head>\n";
   cout << "<body>\n";

   form_iterator fi = formData.getElement("textcontent");  
   if( !fi->isEmpty() && fi != (*formData).end()) {  
      cout << "Text Content: " << **fi << endl;  
   }else{
      cout << "No text entered" << endl;  
   }
  
   cout << "<br/>\n";
   cout << "</body>\n";
   cout << "</html>\n";
   
   return 0;
}

Passing Drop Down Box Data to CGI Program

Drop Down Box is used when we have many options available but only one or two will be selected.

Here is example HTML code for a form with one drop down box

<form action="/cgi-bin/cpp_dropdown.cgi" 
                       method="post" target="_blank">
<select name="dropdown">
<option value="Maths" selected>Maths</option>
<option value="Physics">Physics</option>
</select>
<input type="submit" value="Submit"/>
</form>

The result of this code is the following form

Maths
Physics
Below is C++ program, which will generate cpp_dropdown.cgi script to handle input given by web browser through drop down box.

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>  
#include <string>  
#include <stdio.h>  
#include <stdlib.h> 

#include <cgicc/CgiDefs.h> 
#include <cgicc/Cgicc.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTTPHTMLHeader.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTMLClasses.h> 

using namespace std;
using namespace cgicc;

int main ()
{
   Cgicc formData;
  
   cout << "Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n";
   cout << "<html>\n";
   cout << "<head>\n";
   cout << "<title>Drop Down Box Data to CGI</title>\n";
   cout << "</head>\n";
   cout << "<body>\n";

   form_iterator fi = formData.getElement("dropdown");  
   if( !fi->isEmpty() && fi != (*formData).end()) {  
      cout << "Value Selected: " << **fi << endl;  
   }
  
   cout << "<br/>\n";
   cout << "</body>\n";
   cout << "</html>\n";
   
   return 0;
}

Using Cookies in CGI

HTTP protocol is a stateless protocol. But for a commercial website it is required to maintain session information among different pages. For example one user registration ends after completing many pages. But how to maintain user’s session information across all the web pages.

In many situations, using cookies is the most efficient method of remembering and tracking preferences, purchases, commissions, and other information required for better visitor experience or site statistics.

How It Works

Your server sends some data to the visitor’s browser in the form of a cookie. The browser may accept the cookie. If it does, it is stored as a plain text record on the visitor’s hard drive. Now, when the visitor arrives at another page on your site, the cookie is available for retrieval. Once retrieved, your server knows/remembers what was stored.

Cookies are a plain text data record of 5 variable-length fields:

Expires : The date the cookie will expire. If this is blank, the cookie will expire when the visitor quits the browser.
Domain : The domain name of your site.
Path : The path to the directory or web page that set the cookie. This may be blank if you want to retrieve the cookie from any directory or page.
Secure : If this field contains the word “secure” then the cookie may only be retrieved with a secure server. If this field is blank, no such restriction exists.
Name=Value : Cookies are set and retrieved in the form of key and value pairs.

Setting up Cookies

This is very easy to send cookies to browser. These cookies will be sent along with HTTP Header before to Content-type filed. Assuming you want to set UserID and Password as cookies. So cookies setting will be done as follows

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main ()
{
 
   cout << "Set-Cookie:UserID=XYZ;\r\n";
   cout << "Set-Cookie:Password=XYZ123;\r\n";
   cout << "Set-Cookie:Domain=www.tutorialspoint.com;\r\n";
   cout << "Set-Cookie:Path=/perl;\n";
   cout << "Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n";

   cout << "<html>\n";
   cout << "<head>\n";
   cout << "<title>Cookies in CGI</title>\n";
   cout << "</head>\n";
   cout << "<body>\n";

   cout << "Setting cookies" << endl;  
  
   cout << "<br/>\n";
   cout << "</body>\n";
   cout << "</html>\n";
   
   return 0;
}

From this example, you must have understood how to set cookies. We use Set-Cookie HTTP header to set cookies.

Here, it is optional to set cookies attributes like Expires, Domain, and Path. It is notable that cookies are set before sending magic line “Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n.

Compile above program to produce setcookies.cgi, and try to set cookies using following link. It will set four cookies at your computer:

/cgi-bin/setcookies.cgi

Retrieving Cookies

This is very easy to retrieve all the set cookies. Cookies are stored in CGI environment variable HTTP_COOKIE and they will have following form.

key1=value1;key2=value2;key3=value3....

Here is an example of how to retrieving cookies.

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>  
#include <string>  
#include <stdio.h>  
#include <stdlib.h> 

#include <cgicc/CgiDefs.h> 
#include <cgicc/Cgicc.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTTPHTMLHeader.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTMLClasses.h>

using namespace std;
using namespace cgicc;

int main ()
{
   Cgicc cgi;
   const_cookie_iterator cci;

   cout << "Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n";
   cout << "<html>\n";
   cout << "<head>\n";
   cout << "<title>Cookies in CGI</title>\n";
   cout << "</head>\n";
   cout << "<body>\n";
   cout << "<table border = \"0\" cellspacing = \"2\">";
   
   // get environment variables
   const CgiEnvironment& env = cgi.getEnvironment();

   for( cci = env.getCookieList().begin();
        cci != env.getCookieList().end(); 
        ++cci )
   {
      cout << "<tr><td>" << cci->getName() << "</td><td>";
      cout << cci->getValue();                                 
      cout << "</td></tr>\n";
   }
   cout << "</table><\n";
  
   cout << "<br/>\n";
   cout << "</body>\n";
   cout << "</html>\n";
   
   return 0;
}

Now, compile above program to produce getcookies.cgi, and try to get a list of all the cookies available at your computer:

/cgi-bin/getcookies.cgi

This will produce a list of all the four cookies set in previous section and all other cookies set at your computer:

UserID XYZ 
Password XYZ123 
Domain www.tutorialspoint.com 
Path /perl

File Upload Example:

To upload a file the HTML form must have the enctype attribute set tomultipart/form-data. The input tag with the file type will create a “Browse” button.

<html>
<body>
   <form enctype="multipart/form-data" 
            action="/cgi-bin/cpp_uploadfile.cgi" 
            method="post">
   <p>File: <input type="file" name="userfile" /></p>
   <p><input type="submit" value="Upload" /></p>
   </form>
</body>
</html>

The result of this code is the following form:

File:

Note: Above example has been disabled intentionally to save people uploading files on our server. But you can try above code with your server.

Here is the script cpp_uploadfile.cpp to handle file upload:

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>  
#include <string>  
#include <stdio.h>  
#include <stdlib.h> 

#include <cgicc/CgiDefs.h> 
#include <cgicc/Cgicc.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTTPHTMLHeader.h> 
#include <cgicc/HTMLClasses.h>

using namespace std;
using namespace cgicc;

int main ()
{
   Cgicc cgi;

   cout << "Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n";
   cout << "<html>\n";
   cout << "<head>\n";
   cout << "<title>File Upload in CGI</title>\n";
   cout << "</head>\n";
   cout << "<body>\n";

   // get list of files to be uploaded
   const_file_iterator file = cgi.getFile("userfile");
   if(file != cgi.getFiles().end()) {
      // send data type at cout.
      cout << HTTPContentHeader(file->getDataType());
      // write content at cout.
      file->writeToStream(cout);
   }
   cout << "<File uploaded successfully>\n";
   cout << "</body>\n";
   cout << "</html>\n";
   
   return 0;
}

The above example is writing content at cout stream but you can open your file stream and save the content of uploaded file in a file at desired location.

C++ Files and Streams

Opening a File:

Closing a File

Writing to a File:

Reading from a File:

Read & Write Example:

File Position Pointers:

C++ Exception Handling

Throwing Exceptions:

Catching Exceptions:

C++ Standard Exceptions:

Define New Exceptions:

C++ Dynamic Memory

The new and delete operators:

Dynamic Memory Allocation for Arrays:

Dynamic Memory Allocation for Objects:

Namespaces in C++

Defining a Namespace:

The using directive:

Discontiguous Namespaces:

Nested Namespaces:

C++ Templates

Function Template:

Class Template:

C++ Preprocessor

The #define Preprocessor:

Function-Like Macros:

Conditional Compilation:

The # and ## Operators:

Predefined C++ Macros:

C++ Signal Handling

The signal() function:

The raise() function:

C++ Multithreading

Creating Threads:

Terminating Threads:

Example:

Passing Arguments to Threads:

Joining and Detaching Threads:

C++ Web Programming

What is CGI?

Web Browsing

CGI Architecture Diagram

Web Server Configuration

First CGI Program

Hello World! This is my first CGI program

HTTP Header

CGI Environment Variables

C++ CGI Library

GET and POST Methods

Passing Information using GET method:

Simple URL Example : Get Method

Simple FORM Example: GET Method

Passing Information using POST method:

Passing Checkbox Data to CGI Program

Passing Radio Button Data to CGI Program

Passing Text Area Data to CGI Program

Passing Drop Down Box Data to CGI Program

Using Cookies in CGI

How It Works

Setting up Cookies

Retrieving Cookies

File Upload Example:

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