Is this the right way to get the character count for the first word (or any word) in a dictionary file in C++?

Question

This code compiles, but does not display anything. I am reading the whole file so that I can get character count for any word in the list. I am trying to see if that extra character at the end of each word in dictionary.txt is really a space, a newline, or what it is. Why is it not displaying anything? My laptop only has 4GB of RAM, so could it be a memory issue?

//dictionary.txt is found here: https://dev.intentionrepeater.com/cpp/dictionary.txt

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>

#define SIZE_OF_WORD_LIST 49528

using namespace std;

int main() {
    std::string word_list[SIZE_OF_WORD_LIST-1];
    int i;
    
    ifstream file("dictionary.txt");
    
    try
    {
        if (file.is_open()) {
            for (i = 0; i < SIZE_OF_WORD_LIST; ++i) {
                file >> word_list[i];
            }
        }
    }
    catch (int e)
    {
        cout << "Error opening file: " << e << endl;
        exit(0);
    }
        
    cout << "Number of characters in first word: " << std::to_string(word_list[0].length()) << endl;
    return 0;
}

Answer 1

In C++ you have to specify the number of elements, not the maximum index, when you declare arrays. You allocated only SIZE_OF_WORD_LIST-1 elements, but have it read upto SIZE_OF_WORD_LIST words.

It seems a Segmentation Fault invoked by acessing the nonexistent element word_list[SIZE_OF_WORD_LIST-1] is preventing it from printing.

To avoid this, allocate enough elements. In other words, use

    std::string word_list[SIZE_OF_WORD_LIST];

instead of

    std::string word_list[SIZE_OF_WORD_LIST-1];