I am working on a small columns class, since I use allot of tabular data. I am trying to set up code to allow me to efficiently read in tabular data, manipulate it, and write to output files. I more or less know what I need to do, but there are many options to sort through.

I have the beginnings of a columns class, without access functions and such. This also includes a vector of class that will hold one object for each col.

Code:

class column_data {

public:

   // initialize class members
   column_data()
      : scaleMin(0.0),
        scaleMax(0.0),
        content(""),
        type(""),
        scale_type("") ,
        header("")  { }

   float scaleMin, scaleMax;
   std::string content, type, scale_type, header;
   std::vector<std::string> inputDataString;
   std::vector<char> inputDataChar;
   std::vector<int> inputDataInt;
   std::vector<float> inputDataFloat;

};

// create vector of column_data objects
std::vector<column_data> columns;

There is some meta data here (like the content field), that will probably end up in a different class. I have vectors for the different data types that could be in the data. Only one of these would get populated, depending on the value of "type".

I am reading all of the data and storing each row in a vector of string,

Code:

   // create an input stream and open the input file
   ifstream splitsInput;
   splitsInput.open( splitsInFile.c_str() );

   // read in each line
   while(getline(splitsInput,newSplitsLine)) {
      // remove '\r' EOL chars
      newSplitsLine.erase (remove(newSplitsLine.begin(),newSplitsLine.end(),'\r') , newSplitsLine.end());
      // store row data in vector of string
      storeSplitsRows.push_back(newSplitsLine);
   }

Then I can create an object for each col by parsing the first row,

Code:

   colsRowStream << storeSplitsRows[0];
   int i = 0;
   // parse header row into cells, tab delimiter
   while(getline(colsRowStream,rowCell,'\t')) {
      // create new column data object
      column_data newCol;
      // add to vector
      columns.push_back(newCol);
      i++;
   }
   // clear the buffer
   colsRowStream.clear();

Now I have an object for each col and can begin processing the other rows.

I would like to make processing a function where I would add a row to the string stream, select a target variable in the class for the parsed data to go, and pass the stringstream and the target to a loading function.

Code:

// accepts a string stream and parses the data in to columns
int row_toCols(stringstream colsRowStream){
   int i = 0;
   std::string rowCell

   // parse row into cells by tab delimiter
   while(getline(colsRowStream,rowCell,'\t')) {
      columns[i].content = rowCell;
      i++;
   }
   // clear the buffer
   colsRowStream.clear();
}

// load first row into string stream
colsRowStream << storeSplitsRows[0];
row_toCols( stringstream colsRowStream);

The code above results in the data in the first row being parsed by tab and deposited in the content string var of each object. What I need to do is to be able to pass the target in the call so I can re-use this function to populate the rest of the data structure. I guess I would set the function to look for a pointer to an object, and then pass the object using the & operator, but there are always allot of ways of doing this kind of thing, so I'm not sure. I also need the code to handle different data types other than string. I could have different loading functions for different data types if that is necessary.

If I am going about this whole thing in the wrong way, now would be a good time to say so. The loading function will probably be a class method at some point.

LMHmedchem