Can you pass ints OR strings to the same class without it being templated?

[jopeters]

I have a program I'm writing that reads from a file and separates the data it receives in a particular way. It is supposed to work the same way whether I give it a file of numbers or a file of strings. Right now I have it written as two separate files (I have a header and cpp for both ints and strings), but I really need it to work with just one set of files.

The problem is, I had a TERRIBLE time trying to template my class to work with both because Ive never done it before...is there any other way to try and do this? Or is templating a class the only way to get it to work with both?

[kyle11778]

maybe overloaded functions

http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/functions2/

templates are probably preferred, umm could you display you code for both versions of the class and maybe we can help you template the class...

[jopeters]

I've been using some overloaded functions and hopefully on the right track, but I cant seem to find the problem in this code...

ifstream fin;
	fin.open("C:/Users/Josh/Desktop/TriNode/NumList.txt");

	int first;
	fin >> first;

	cout << first;

	if(first < 10)
	{
		trinode root(first);
		list<int>::iterator currentIt;

		while(!fin.eof())
		{
			int temp;
			fin >> temp;
			root.insert_node(temp);
		}
	}

when I try to use the trinode "root" or the iterator "currentIt" after this if statement, it keeps giving me errors saying they are not declared, which I would assume means it never gets past the IF(first <10) but If i cout << first right before, its 8.....which is obviously less than 10.

[jopeters]

alright that was a stupid mistake...nevermind

[kyle11778]

is this your program?

http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/beginner/30538/