A way to read data out of a file at compile time to put it somewhere in application image files to initialize an array.

Question

considering visual C++ compiler, Lets say I've got a file with whatever extension and it contains 100 bytes of data which are exactly the data that I want to initialize an array of char data type with a length of 100 characters with, Now apparently one way is to read those data out of file by using I/O file classes or APIs at run-time but what I want to know is that, is there any way using directives or something to tell the compiler I want to put that data in a right place in my application image files at compile time and compiler should go read those data out of that file?

Answer 1

• Write a program that reads the 100 byte data file and generates as output, a file, with c++ code/syntax for declaring an array with the 100 bytes in the file.
• Include this new generated file(inline) in your main c++ file.
• Call the c++ compiler on the main c++ file.

Answer 2

#include "filename"

or am I missing something obvious?

Answer 3

You do this with a resource in a Windows program. Right-click the project, Add, Resource, Import. Give the custom resource type a name. Edit the resource ID, if necessary. Get a pointer to the resource data at runtime with FindResource and LoadResource.