Thanks, Blue,
I am not surprised by your initial comment, because the 2006 book I am studying "C++ for Mathematicians" by Edward Scheinerman is vague about this (p.73-75).
Your suggestions are very helpful, especially 2 and 3. I have been following number 1, thank you!
May I ask another one of you?
I have written a simple program that writes a file. I specify the name of the file like this "poop1" and it runs fine, creating the file and allowing me to open and read it subsequently.
But, when I tried to allow the user to enter a file name as a string, the compiler balks.
I can send the code if that helps.
With appreciation for your time and expertise,
David
Western NY