C++ ifstream pointer

Here's the code, i just want to count the lines of a file. I get a bunch of "invalid simple type name destructor" errors..
It makes a pointer to an input stream to the file specified by the command line parameter. Then it passes the pointer to countlines() to try to count the lines. anyone know why it doesn't work??

#include <fstream.h>

#define NULL 0
#define WIDTH 257

int countlines(ifstream *in);

int main(int numArgs, char *args[])
{
if (numArgs != 2)
{
cout << "Usage:\n reader filename.ext";
return 1;
}
ifstream *fin;
fin = new ifstream(args[1], ios::in | ios::nocreate);
cout << countlines(fin);
//char buf[WIDTH];

//for(int i=0; !*fin.eof(); i++)
//{
// *fin.getline(buf, WIDTH);
// cout << buf << "\n";
//}
//
*fin.close();
return 0;
}

int countlines(ifstream *in)
{
int lines = 0;
char null[WIDTH];
while (! in.eof())
{
in.getline(null, WIDTH);
lines++;
}
in.seekg(0, ios::beg);
delete null;
return lines;
}

Oops, thats not the code, forgot to put it back so it makes sense: the countline() function's references to the pointer have been changed.

#include <fstream.h>

#define NULL 0
#define WIDTH 257

int countlines(ifstream *in);

int main(int numArgs, char *args[])
{
if (numArgs != 2)
{
cout << "Usage:\n reader filename.ext";
return 1;
}
ifstream *fin;
fin = new ifstream(args[1], ios::in | ios::nocreate);
cout << countlines(fin);
//char buf[WIDTH];

//for(int i=0; !*fin.eof(); i++)
//{
// *fin.getline(buf, WIDTH);
// cout << buf << "\n";
//}
//
*fin.close();
return 0;
}

int countlines(ifstream *in)
{
int lines = 0;
char null[WIDTH];
while (!*in.eof())
{
*in.getline(null, WIDTH);
lines++;
}
*in.seekg(0, ios::beg);
delete null;
return lines;
}

...you can't do "delete null;", as it's not dynamic memory.

Using an ifstream object instead of an ifstream pointer seems clearer to me.

C++ really doesn't like it when you redefine constants for it - such as NULL.

Hope that helps.

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