Returning to beginning of file after getline

Question

So i've read all the lines from a file thusly

while (getline(ifile,line))     {         // logic     } 

Where ifile is an ifstream and line is a string

My problem is I now want to use getline over again, and seem to be unable to return to the beginning of the file, as running

cout << getline(ifile,line); 

Will return 0

I've attempted to use:

ifile.seekg (0, ios::beg); 

To no avail, it seems to have no effect. How do I go back to the start of the file?

Answer 1

Since you have reached (and attempted to read past) the end of the file, the eof and fail flags will be set. You need to clear them using ifile.clear – then try seeking:

ifile.clear(); ifile.seekg(0);