Creating a 50 x 50 grid

[Jeyselv]

I had a question about C++ if anybody can answer it for me, I will really appreciate it.

Say I create an output file and I want to create a 50 x 50 grid in the file. How can I do this without using multidimensional arrays? I was thinking of this. However, I think the newline character on each line is not considered to be part of the canvas:

//set up 50x50 canvas
for(int i = 1; i <= 50; i++)
{
    outfile.put(' ');
    for(int j = 1; j <= 50; j++)

    outfile.put('\n');
}
//reset pointer to start of file
outfile.seekp(0, ios::beg);

One of the things I wish to accomplish with this grid is to be able to move the pointer around. Any help will be appreciated

[Duthomhas]

Make sure you open the file in binary mode if you wish to seek and tell. Otherwise, I see no issue with what you have.

Perhaps if you could explain better what you are trying to accomplish...

[goldenchicken]

I see no reason why you would want to avoid multidimensional arrays for this. Then you could store the grid very easily.

[jonnin]

you can do this..

int grid[maxrow*maxcol];
grid[maxcol*desired_row+desired_col] = value; //same as a 2-d array grid[desired_row][desired_col].

there are 4 or 5 reasons why 1-d is the better way.
1) you can reshape something. Maybe you want to look at it as a 10x250 for some reason.
2) you can read and write it to a binary file without hassle
3) you can iterate, search / sort / more <algorithms> on the whole thing instead of per row which is faster for many needs
4) you can avoid some memory /paging problems easier
5) you can transpose /rotate/etc in place

all the above works for vector / valarray as well instead of vector<vector< design.

[AbstractionAnon]

You have a problem with your nested loops.

Line 4: Each time though the outer loop you're writing a single space.

Lines 5-7: You output 50 NL characters.

If you want 50 lines of spaces, you want something like this:

for (int i = 1; i <= 50; i++)
{   for (int j = 1; j <= 50; j++)
        outfile.put (' ');
    outfile.put ('\n');
}