fstream is not writing anything on the file

Question

I'm trying to write some things to a text file but it won't even create the file. I will appreciate a lot if you can help me with this. Thanks.

#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>

int main(){
    std::ofstream file;
    file.open("path/to/file");

    //write something to file
    file << "test";

    //printing to screen
    std::cout << file.rdbuf();  

    //closing file
    file.close(); 

    return 0;
}

Answer 1

The following line is your culprit:

std::cout << file.rdbuf();

You cannot use rdbuf to output a file that was opened for write operations only.

Remove that line and your file will be written correctly.

---

If you want to read your file after you've finished writing to it:

Solution 1: Open file for both read and write operations using fstream:

std::fstream file("path/to/file", std::ios::in | std::ios::out);
// ... write to file

file.seekg(0); // set read position to beginning of file
std::cout << file.rdbuf();

Solution 2: Create a new std::ifstream to read from file:

 // ... write to file
 file.close(); // call `close` to make sure all input is written to file

 std::ifstream inputFile("path/to/file");
 std::cout << inputFile.rdbuf();