How do you open a file in C++?

You need to use an ifstream if you just want to read (use an ofstream to write, or an fstream for both).

To open a file in text mode, do the following:

ifstream in("filename.ext", ios_base::in); // the in flag is optional

To open a file in binary mode, you just need to add the "binary" flag.

ifstream in2("filename2.ext", ios_base::in | ios_base::binary ); 

Use the ifstream.read() function to read a block of characters (in binary or text mode). Use the getline() function (it's global) to read an entire line.

There are three ways to do this, depending on your needs. You could use the old-school C way and call fopen/fread/fclose, or you could use the C++ fstream facilities (ifstream/ofstream), or if you're using MFC, use the CFile class, which provides functions to accomplish actual file operations.

All of these are suitable for both text and binary, though none have a specific readline functionality. What you'd most likely do instead in that case is use the fstream classes (fstream.h) and use the stream operators (<< and >>) or the read function to read/write blocks of text:

int nsize = 10;
std::vector<char> somedata(nsize);
ifstream myfile;
myfile.open("<path to file>");
myfile.read(somedata.data(), nsize);
myfile.close();

Note that, if you're using Visual Studio 2005 or higher, traditional fstream may not be available (there's a new Microsoft implementation, which is slightly different, but accomplishes the same thing).