Writing data with ofstream crash C++

Question

the IDE i'm using (visual studio 2012) doesn't show any errors or warnings, but i'm basicly trying to write binary data to a file called wizdata.bin and I have declared a few objects of my Wizard class. the Wizard class has few functions with 4 member variables ( 1 string and 3 ints). When I call the function in Wizard class called "save" the console program stops working, but it does manage to write the Wizard class member variable name which is a string. After that it fails to write any of the ints in the class. So the question is what am I doing wrong with trying to write ints to a binary file? the part that is commended in Wizard.cpp is causing the crash.

heres my code files:

Wizard.h:

    #ifndef WIZARD_H
    #define WIZARD_H

    #include <string>
    #include <fstream>

    class Wizard
    {
    public:
        Wizard();
        Wizard( std::string name, int hp, int mp, int armor );

        void print();

        void save( std::ofstream& outFile );
        void load( std::ifstream& inFile );

    private:
        std::string name;
        int hitPoints;
        int magicPoints;
        int armor;
    };

    #endif

Wizard.cpp:

    #include "Wizard.h"
    #include <iostream>
    using namespace std;

    Wizard::Wizard()
    {
        name = "Default";
        hitPoints = 0;
        magicPoints = 0;
        armor = 0;
    }

    Wizard::Wizard( string name, int hp, int mp, int armor )
    {
        this->name = name;
        hitPoints = hp;
        magicPoints = mp;
        this->armor = armor;
    }

    void Wizard::print()
    {
        cout << "Name= " << name << endl;
        cout << "HP= " << hitPoints << endl;
        cout << "MP= " << magicPoints << endl;
        cout << "Armor= " << armor << endl;
        cout << endl;
    }

    void Wizard::save( ofstream& outFile )
    {
        outFile.write( name.c_str(), name.size() );
        //outFile.write( (char*)hitPoints, sizeof(hitPoints) );
        //outFile.write( (char*)magicPoints, sizeof(magicPoints) );
        //outFile.write( (char*)armor, sizeof(armor) );
    }

    void Wizard::load( ifstream& inFile )
    {
        inFile.read( (char*)name.c_str(), name.size() );
        inFile.read( (char*)&hitPoints, sizeof(hitPoints) );
        inFile.read( (char*)&magicPoints, sizeof(magicPoints) );
        inFile.read( (char*)&armor, sizeof(armor) );
    }

and Main.cpp:

    #include "Wizard.h"
    using namespace std;

    int main()
    {
        Wizard wiz0( "Gandalf", 25, 100, 10 );
        Wizard wiz1( "Loki", 50, 150, 12 );
        Wizard wiz2( "Magius", 10, 75, 6 );

        ofstream outFile;
        outFile.open( "wizdata.bin", ios_base::binary );

        if( outFile )
        {
            wiz0.save( outFile );
            wiz1.save( outFile );
            wiz2.save( outFile );

            outFile.close();
        }

        return 0;
    }

this is the "Main.cpp" of my second console app that loads the data:

    #include "Wizard.h"
    #include <iostream>
    using namespace std;

    int main()
    {
        Wizard wiz0;
        Wizard wiz1;
        Wizard wiz2;

        cout << "BEFORE LOADING..." << endl;
        wiz0.print();
        wiz1.print();
        wiz2.print();

        ifstream inFile;
        inFile.open( "wizdata.bin", ios_base::binary );

        if( inFile )
        {
            wiz0.load( inFile );
            wiz1.load( inFile );
            wiz2.load( inFile );

            inFile.close();
        }

        cout << "AFTER LOADING..." << endl;
        wiz0.print();
        wiz1.print();
        wiz2.print();

        return 0;
    }

after loading the data this these are the values: Name: Gandalf HP: 25 MP: 100 Armor: 10

Name: Loki2 HP: 38400 MP: 3072 Armor: 1734429952

Name: ius HP: 75 MP: 6 Armor: 0

Answer 1

The first argument of write should be a pointer to the data you want to write. So try this:

outFile.write( (char*)&hitPoints, sizeof(hitPoints) );

Answer 2

Short answer:

Use the shift operator '<<' instead of write ().

Little bit longer answer:

The problem is the cast. (char *)number interprets the number as a pointer, which of course cannot point to anything meaningful.