file loading

#include <fstream>
#include <vector>
#include <iterator>

std::vector<char> world;

void ReadFile()
{
  std::ifstream input( "data/world.txt" );
  world.assign( std::istreambuf_iterator(input),
                std::istreambuf_iterator() );
}

Or, by hand, in C, allocate a fixed-size buffer, when it is full, allocate a larger one, copy the data, free the first and move on.

Or (brittle), rely on ftell() and fseek().

Assuming you can seek around in the file and do not want to use anything outside of ANSI C (e.g., stat), this is a relatively simple way to do it:

void ReadWorld(void) {
  FILE *input = fopen("data/world.txt", "rt");
  long input_size;
  void *buffer;

  /* Go to the end and ask how far from the beginning we are */
  fseek(input, 0, SEEK_END);
  input_size = ftell(input);

  /* Go back to the beginning */
  fseek(input, 0, SEEK_CUR);

  /* Allocate a huge buffer to put the file into */
  buffer = malloc(input_size);

  /* Read it all into buffer */
  fread(buffer, 1, input_size, input);

  /* Done with the file */
  fclose(input);

  /* Mess with buffer here... */

  /* Done with buffer */
  free(buffer);
}

Not tested, but should work if I didn''t typo. No error checking included, you should add it.

This might help you out. Its how I do files

void RealWord(char *data) //pass in a pointer to hold the data

{
  int size;
  FILE *input = fopen("data/world.txt","r");

  fseek(input,0,2); //seek to end of file

  size = ftell(input); //read location of pointer (size of file)

  fseek(input,0,0); //move back to top of file


  delete data; //make sure not already allocated

  data = new char[size];
  fread(data,size,1,input); //read in whole file at once


  fclose(input);

}

Thanks for all your help