How to find EOF while reading from a file - go

Question

I am using the following code to read a file in Go:
spoon , err := ioutil.ReadFile(os.Args[1])
if err!=nil {
panic ("File reading error")
}
Now I check for every byte I pick for what character it is. For example:
spoon[i]==' ' //for checking space
Likewise I read the whole file (I know there maybe other ways of reading it)
but keeping this way intact, how can I know that I have reached EOF of the file and I should stop reading it further?
Please don't suggest to find the length of spoon and start a loop. I want a sure shot way of finding EOF.

Answer 1

Use io.EOF to test for end-of-file. For example, to count spaces in a file:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"io"
"os"
)
func main() {
if len(os.Args) <= 1 {
fmt.Println("Missing file name argument")
return
}
f, err := os.Open(os.Args[1])
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
return
}
defer f.Close()
data := make([]byte, 100)
spaces := 0
for {
data = data[:cap(data)]
n, err := f.Read(data)
if err != nil {
if err == io.EOF {
break
}
fmt.Println(err)
return
}
data = data[:n]
for _, b := range data {
if b == ' ' {
spaces++
}
}
}
fmt.Println(spaces)
}

Answer 2

ioutil.ReadFile() reads the entire contents of the file into a byte slice. You don't need to be concerned with EOF. EOF is a construct that is needed when you read a file one chunk at a time. You need to know which chunk has reached the end of the file when you're reading one chunk at a time.
The length of the byte slice returned by ioutil.ReadFile() is all you need.
data := ioutil.ReadFile(os.Args[1])
// Do we need to know the data size?
slice_size := len(data)
// Do we need to look at each byte?
for _,byte := range data {
// do something with each byte
}

Answer 3

This is what you need to look for to find out about End Of File(EOF)
if err != nil {
if errors.Is(err, io.EOF) { // prefered way by GoLang doc
fmt.Println("Reading file finished...")
}
break
}

Answer 4

When you use ioutil.ReadFile(), you don't ever see io.EOF, by design, because ReadFile will read the whole file until EOF is reached. So the slice it returns is the whole file. From the doc:
ReadFile reads the file named by filename and returns the contents. A successful call returns err == nil, not err == EOF. Because ReadFile reads the whole file, it does not treat an EOF from Read as an error to be reported.
From your question, you explicitly mention that you are aware there are other ways to read the file, and some of those ways require you to test the error for io.EOF, but not ReadFile.
Then, with the slice you have, you can read the file using the for...range construct, as others have mentioned. This is a sure way to read the whole file and nothing more (again, ReadFile takes care of that). Or iterating from 0 to len(spoon) - 1 would work too, but range is more idiomatic and basically does the same.
In other words: when you reach the end of the slice, you reach the end of the file (provided ReadFile did not return an error).

Answer 5

A slice has no concept of end of file. The slice returned by ioutil.ReadFile has a specific length, which reflects the size of the file it was read from. A common idiom, but only one of the possible used in this case, is to range the slice, effectively "consuming" all of the bytes, originally sitting in the file:
for i, b := range spoon {
// At index 'i' is byte 'b'
// At file's offset 'i', 'b' was read
... do something useful here
}