Having a class with no data members good option for file manipulation?

Question

I have a file with saved data that sometimes needs to be accessed, written to, erased, etc. when the program is running. I decided to write a SavedDataHandler class to accomplish this. I'm currently using the fstream class.

I considered having one data member be the fstream itself, opening it in the constructor, and closing it in the destructor. However, I realized that different functions called on the SavedDataHandler open the stream differently ( setting different flags, etc. ) so I decided not to go that route.

Instead I just have a static const std::string with the file name, with the public member functions handling the opening and closing of the file as they need to. Performance is not an issue.

Is this route a valid option? Since it has no data members, providing a constructor isn't even necessary. It's just a class that contains functions ( and one static constant ), with the functions operating on a resource rather than a data member.

Answer 1

Hmya, the fstream class is by itself already a capable wrapper class around an operating system handle for a file. If you can't think of a way to add functionality to your own wrapper around fstream, take it as a hint that you don't actually need a wrapper.

Don't wrap (or inherit) just because you can.

Answer 2

Well in some projects, wrapping is essential. Just stop to think if later you'll need for example, to change the file I/O libs (dunno why you'd want to do that, since C++ libs are optimized and ISO). What would you do then? Change all the calls from fstream to YourNewSuperMegaLib::SuperFileSystem::MegaFileStream? If you want simplicity, I'd just inherit fstream and in the constructor, pass the opening modes you want and invoke the super constructor accodingly.