Getting std :: ifstream to handle LF, CR, and CRLF?

As Neil pointed out, “the C++ runtime should deal correctly with whatever the line ending convention is for your particular platform.”

However, people do move text files between different platforms, so that is not good enough. Here is a function that handles all three line endings (“\r”, “\n” and “\r\n”):

std::istream& safeGetline(std::istream& is, std::string& t)
{
    t.clear();

    // The characters in the stream are read one-by-one using a std::streambuf.
    // That is faster than reading them one-by-one using the std::istream.
    // Code that uses streambuf this way must be guarded by a sentry object.
    // The sentry object performs various tasks,
    // such as thread synchronization and updating the stream state.

    std::istream::sentry se(is, true);
    std::streambuf* sb = is.rdbuf();

    for(;;) {
        int c = sb->sbumpc();
        switch (c) {
        case '\n':
            return is;
        case '\r':
            if(sb->sgetc() == '\n')
                sb->sbumpc();
            return is;
        case std::streambuf::traits_type::eof():
            // Also handle the case when the last line has no line ending
            if(t.empty())
                is.setstate(std::ios::eofbit);
            return is;
        default:
            t += (char)c;
        }
    }
}

And here is a test program:

int main()
{
    std::string path = ...  // insert path to test file here

    std::ifstream ifs(path.c_str());
    if(!ifs) {
        std::cout << "Failed to open the file." << std::endl;
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    int n = 0;
    std::string t;
    while(!safeGetline(ifs, t).eof())
        ++n;
    std::cout << "The file contains " << n << " lines." << std::endl;
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}