ifstream file gives weird character for .html extension

[eagerlearner]

When I open .html file i got a few weird characters printed out which preceding the content inside the .html file. But when I have the same file content with .txt extension, it has not problem. Anyone knows why ? Thanks.

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
	string buff, temp;
	ifstream file;
	file.open("htmlfile.html");
	if(file.is_open())
		cout << "opened";
	while(getline(file,temp))
		buff += temp;
	cout << buff;
	return 0;
}

[JosAH]

When I open .html file i got a few weird characters printed out which preceding the content inside the .html file. But when I have the same file content with .txt extension, it has not problem. Anyone knows why ? Thanks.

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
	string buff, temp;
	ifstream file;
	file.open("htmlfile.html");
	if(file.is_open())
		cout << "opened";
	while(getline(file,temp))
		buff += temp;
	cout << buff;
	return 0;
}

Are you sure the two files are identical? What would happen if you got rid of
the other .txt file, rename your htmlfile.html to htmlfile.txt, do the same in your
program and try again? The ifstream.open() function couldn't care less about
the file extension afaik.

kind regards,

Jos

[eagerlearner]

Are you sure the two files are identical? What would happen if you got rid of
the other .txt file, rename your htmlfile.html to htmlfile.txt, do the same in your
program and try again? The ifstream.open() function couldn't care less about
the file extension afaik.

kind regards,

Jos

Thanks for that hint,
Now I delete both the .html and .txt and I go to my project file and recreate both file with following steps, then it works fine with my original code. FYI, I am using Windows Vista.
- Right click "new" > "text document"
- Name it as "txt.txt"
- open and type "abc"
- save the file
- using the same text file
- change to "def"
- Then now "Save as..."
- type the file name as "html.html"

But I am still curious why before this it prints out the weird characters.

[eagerlearner]

lol, actually the real problem is

1) Open the file with notepad .. save as .. choose ANSI encoding

run the code.


2) Open the file with notepad .. save as .. choose UTF-8 encoding

run the code.

it only works in ANSII, but I never realize that I save the file as UTF-8

[JosAH]

Thanks for that hint,
Now I delete both the .html and .txt and I go to my project file and recreate both file with following steps, then it works fine with my original code. FYI, I am using Windows Vista.
- Right click "new" > "text document"
- Name it as "txt.txt"
- open and type "abc"
- save the file
- using the same text file
- change to "def"
- Then now "Save as..."
- type the file name as "html.html"

But I am still curious why before this it prints out the weird characters.

Well, we'd never know, would we? You've removed the cause from your hard disk;
you threw it into the abyss of oblivion; we've lost it for the posterity; the cause is
no more; it shuffled off its mortal coil; it's gone to meet its maker; it joined the
choir invisible; it's pushing daisies; it's an ex-cause; it's rotting away where it
is; the valley of tears doesn't matter to it anymore; it's growing funny wings.

kind regards,

Jos ;-)

[eagerlearner]

Thanks, you are good poet, but I don't really understand. lol found more information in Wikipedia, in case if anyone like to know what is those three weird characters that I just knew as well.

Windows
Although not part of the standard, many Windows programs (including Windows Notepad) use the byte sequence EF BB BF at the beginning of a file to indicate that the file is encoded using UTF-8. This is the Byte Order Mark U+FEFF encoded in UTF-8, which appears as the ISO-8859-1 characters "" in most text editors and web browsers not prepared to handle UTF-8.