How to write/read an Eigen matrix from binary file

Question

To write Eigen::Matrix to file I really like to use the following:

typedef Eigen::Matrix<Scalar, Eigen::Dynamic, Eigen::Dynamic> Matrix_MxN;
Matrix_MxN J = Matrix_MxN::Zeros(10,10);      
std::ofstream("matrix.txt") << J;

But unfortunately, something that can do the opposite is not defined:

std::ifstream("matrix.txt") >> J;

To circumvent this problem, how can you read/write an Eigen::Matrix to binary file instead?

Answer 1

You can define these methods:

namespace Eigen{
template<class Matrix>
void write_binary(const char* filename, const Matrix& matrix){
    std::ofstream out(filename, std::ios::out | std::ios::binary | std::ios::trunc);
    typename Matrix::Index rows=matrix.rows(), cols=matrix.cols();
    out.write((char*) (&rows), sizeof(typename Matrix::Index));
    out.write((char*) (&cols), sizeof(typename Matrix::Index));
    out.write((char*) matrix.data(), rows*cols*sizeof(typename Matrix::Scalar) );
    out.close();
}
template<class Matrix>
void read_binary(const char* filename, Matrix& matrix){
    std::ifstream in(filename, std::ios::in | std::ios::binary);
    typename Matrix::Index rows=0, cols=0;
    in.read((char*) (&rows),sizeof(typename Matrix::Index));
    in.read((char*) (&cols),sizeof(typename Matrix::Index));
    matrix.resize(rows, cols);
    in.read( (char *) matrix.data() , rows*cols*sizeof(typename Matrix::Scalar) );
    in.close();
}
} // Eigen::

and you can test their usage with:

typedef Eigen::Matrix<float, Eigen::Dynamic, Eigen::Dynamic, Eigen::ColMajor> Matrix_MxN; 
Matrix_MxN J = Matrix_MxN::Random(10,5);
Eigen::write_binary("matrix.dat",J);
std::cout << "\n original \n" << J << std::endl;
Matrix_MxN J_copy;
Eigen::read_binary("matrix.dat",J_copy);
std::cout << "\n copy \n" << J_copy << std::endl;
cout.flush();'

If you know of a better way, suggestions are welcome!