Reading text from a text file, line by line!

[ginda1]

Hi all

I am currentley reading in a line of text from a text file using the below code:

    QFile settingsfile("file.txt");
    settingsfile.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly | QIODevice::Text);
    QTextStream in(&settingsfile);
    QString line = in.readLine();
    return line;

i know that the readLine() reads in a line of text, but is it possible to read in lines sequencially? or readling in certain lines i.e. line 1, line2 etc

file.txt contains

10
5
black
blue

[DianaM]

You can call readLine() more than once.

[ginda1]

You can call readLine() more than once.

I was hoping i wouldnt have to loop to a line instead read a line, by its line number. Never mind. Thanks for your reply.

[achipa]

I was hoping i wouldnt have to loop to a line instead read a line, by its line number. Never mind. Thanks for your reply.

Plain text files are generally not indexed structures, so you would need to read in all previous lines anyway. If your file/lines are really huge, you might want to have a sort of index in the first line (like relative byte positions separated in CSV form or sorts).

[danhicksbyron]

If you have fixed-length records you can alway use seek, but I know of no standard programming environment that will give you records by number otherwise.

[Jon Heron]

Look into QString::section().
I was able to use it to pick out desired sentences from one big text file to display the desired directions along with the images that can be iterated through (for a knot tying app).
Here is what I used to get it to work, maybe it will do what you need?

    //open file for instructions
    str = (QString::fromUtf8(":/images/docs/texts/instructions/Instructions.txt"));
    QFile inputFile2(str);
    inputFile2.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly);
    QTextStream in2(&inputFile2);
    QString line2 = in2.readAll();
    QString instructions;
    inputFile2.close();
    str1.remove(" ");
    instructions = line2.section(str1, 1, 1); //load instructions with all the selected instructions
    int tmp(strLst.count()); //setup counter with number of images
    for(int i = 0; i < tmp; i++)
    {
        inst += instructions.section('.', i, i);  //load strlist inst with each sentance
     //  qDebug() << "*****" << inst.at(i) << "*******";
    }

Good luck!
Jon

[danhicksbyron]

Generally, if you have a file full of options entries or some such the best way to handle it is to use XML or JavaScript. But this means you read the entire file up front.

If you really want to do random access, and you don't have fixed-length records, you need some sort of directory. Easy for me to do, but probably not the OP. For the OP's problem, if it involves more than a handful of values, a SQL database may be the best approach.

[Jon Heron]

Thanks!
When you say

If you really want to do random access, and you don't have fixed-length records, you need some sort of directory.

Are you referring to a key/map type of setup?
For someone like me who doesn't know Java, XML or anything about data bases, which direction would you encourage them to go?
I have been thinking about another app that that would have many more instructions to weed through. Though the code I posted earlier did work I had to make a few switch statements to filter through knots with duplicate names. Not a big deal in an app with 27 knots but I think it would become cumbersome if there were say 100 knots...
Thanks again,
Jon

[danhicksbyron]

Well, you're going to have to actually learn SOMETHING. JavaScript (not Java) is simple, but there's no built-in support, so you have to find one of the available libraries and add it to your app. XML is more complicated, but built-in. For both you don't get true random access -- you read through the entire file (or until you find what you want).

SQL is more general -- you can do true random access and find things with all sorts of search criteria -- but there's a learning curve (though probably no worse than XML to get started). So it's probably the best way to go unless you have some specific reasons for using some other scheme.

For SQL I'd recommend first getting a GUI SQL app for your PC such as "SQLite Expert" (SQLite is the version of SQL supported on Symbian) and playing around with it, perhaps in combo with a basic book on SQL (or maybe you can find a good online tutorial). Only after you understand what a table is, how to create a query, etc, should you attempt any Qt coding, and then it would be best to start with desktop Qt.

[Jon Heron]

Thanks.
Everything has a learning curve for this guy! lol

Only after you understand what a table is, how to create a query, etc, should you attempt any Qt coding, and then it would be best to start with desktop Qt.

I believe I understand what your talking about, years ago I used to play around with assembly language where I had to use key/map type look up tables for certain functions on the TMS370 processor. It wasn't too bad in assembly, once you understood what you were trying to do... I would imagine it would be easier in Qt but what the hell do I know!
In any event, I will look into these options when the time arrives!
Thanks for your input!
Cheers,
Jon

[miksuh]

This is not really answer to the original question, but I see you are trying to read some settings file. Are those settings stored by your application or is that some external settings file coming from somewhere else?

I just mean that it would be much easier to store and read application specific settings using QSettings class. If you use QSettings then you don't need to handle settings file writing and reading by yourself.

[danhicksbyron]

Just realized I referred to "JavaScript" below when I meant "JSON".

[danhicksbyron]

I have found desktop Qt to be a good tool for "fooling around" with SQLite -- trying various techniques.

[ginda1]

Hi sorry for delayed reply. Thanks to everyone who replied. I achieved what i wanted by reading each line into a qlist and accessing the qlist by at index.