Compiling arrays stored in external text files (C++ compiled using command line g++)

Question

I am a novice c++ programmer so please forgive me if this is a naive question. I have files containing large arrays holding tens-of-thousands of strings that I have used previously in javascript applications. Is there some way to include these into C++ source code so that the arrays are compiled along with the code?

At present, the files are formatted as functions that return (javascript) literal arrays, like this:

// javascript array stored in .js text file
function returnMyArray()
{
return ["string1", "string2", "string3", ... "stringBigNumber"];
} // eof returnMyArray()

I 'include' the external file with the usual javascript script & src tags and assign the array with something like:

myArray = returnMyArray();

I want to achieve the equivalent in c++, ie assign an array stored in a file to an array in my c++ source code so that the data is available for execution when compiled.

I suppose in theory I could copy and paste (suitable formatted) arrays from files into my c++ source code but they are too large for this to be practical.

I can easily re-write the files to whatever format would be easiest to have c++ access the data - either in c++ array syntax or one string per line to be read into an array.

In a similar vein, is there an easy way to include files containing custom function libraries when compiling with g++ in terminal? (my web searches show plenty of ways for various IDE applications but I am writing source in vim and compiling with g++ on the command line).

I am sorry if this is trivial and I have missed it but I am stumped!

Thank you.

Answer 1

Here's how I'd structure this:

file: data.array

/* C++ style comments are ok in this file and will be ignored
 * both single and multiline comments will work */

// the data in the array is a comma seperated list, lines can be any length
    1, 2, 3, 4,
    5, 6, 7, 8,
    9, 10, 11, 12,
    // more comma seperated data
    9996, 9997, 9998, 9999

file: class.h

extern int myArray[]; // you should fill in the size if you can
// more stuff here

file: class.cpp

// if you have an editor that highlights syntax and errors, it may not like this
// however, #include is handled before compiling and performs a blind substitution
// so this is perfectly legal and should compile.
// Visual C++ 2010 highlights this as an error, but the project builds fine.

int myArray[]
{
    #include "data.array"
};

// other definitions of stuff in class.h