C++ Primer Plus

The End-of-File Condition

As Listing 5.17 shows, using a symbol such as # to signal the end of input is not always satisfactory because such a symbol might be part of legitimate input. The same is true of other arbitrarily chosen symbols, such as @ and %. If the input comes from a file, you can employ a much more powerful technique—detecting the end-of-file (EOF). C++ input facilities cooperate with the operating system to detect when input reaches the end of a file and report that information back to a program.

At first glance, reading information from files seems to have little to do with cin and keyboard input, but there are two connections. First, many operating systems, including Unix, Linux, and the Windows Command Prompt mode, support ...