C++ To-Do CLI

A dependency-free command-line to-do list manager written in C++ — a menu-driven terminal task manager that persists your tasks to a plain text file between runs. Single source file, standard library only.

Everything runs in the terminal behind a numbered menu: add a task, list tasks, mark one complete, delete one, quit. Tasks are saved to tasks.txt when you exit and reloaded on the next run, so the list survives between sessions. The whole program is one main.cpp with no external libraries, which makes it a compact reference for file I/O, input validation, and std::vector handling in C++ — and a small, self-contained utility if you just want a to-do list in a terminal.

Features

• Numbered menu interface — add, list, mark complete, delete, quit
• Persistent storage — tasks are saved to tasks.txt and reloaded on start
• Tasks display as [ ] / [x] with a done/pending summary line
• Robust input handling — non-numeric input, out-of-range choices, and empty task descriptions are rejected with a message rather than crashing
• A missing, empty, or partially malformed tasks.txt degrades to an empty list instead of failing on first run
• No external libraries — the C++ standard library only
• Builds and tested on both Linux and Windows in CI

Requirements

• A C++11-capable compiler. Developed against g++ (MinGW GCC 6.3.0) and built in CI with g++ on both ubuntu-latest and windows-latest.
• Nothing else — no CMake, no package manager, no third-party headers.

Build

From the project folder:

g++ -std=c++11 -Wall -O2 -o todo main.cpp

That produces todo (or todo.exe on Windows). CI builds with -Wall -Wextra -O2, and on Windows adds -static so the binary does not pick up a mismatched libstdc++ DLL from the runner's PATH.

Run

./todo

You will see the menu:

  ============================================
                MY TO-DO LIST
  ============================================
  Loaded 2 task(s) from tasks.txt.

  --------------------------------------------
    1.  Add task
    2.  List tasks
    3.  Mark task complete
    4.  Delete task
    5.  Quit
  --------------------------------------------
  Choose an option (1-5):

Listing tasks looks like this:

  Your tasks:
  --------------------------------------------
   1. [ ] Buy milk
   2. [x] Walk the dog
  --------------------------------------------
  Total: 2  |  Done: 1  |  Pending: 1

The program is interactive and takes no command-line flags or arguments — all actions are chosen from the menu.

Scripted use

Because it reads from standard input, you can drive it non-interactively. This adds a task, lists the tasks, and quits:

printf '1\nBuy milk\n\n2\n\n5\n' | ./todo

(The blank lines answer the "press Enter to continue" prompts.) This is exactly the end-to-end smoke test CI runs against the real binary.

Data format

Tasks are stored in tasks.txt, one per line, as doneFlag|description:

0|Buy milk
1|Walk the dog

• doneFlag is 1 for completed tasks and 0 otherwise.
• Everything after the first | is the description, so descriptions may themselves contain | characters without corrupting the file.
• The file is written when you quit, and is git-ignored since it is your personal data.

Tests

g++ -std=c++11 -Wall -Wextra -O2 -o run_tests tests/test_main.cpp
./run_tests

The unit tests cover the input-parsing helpers and the save/load round trip, including descriptions containing | and malformed lines in the data file. CI additionally builds the real binary and drives a scripted add/list/quit session through it on both Linux and Windows.

Limitations

• tasks.txt is read from and written to the current working directory, so running the binary from a different directory gives you a different task list. Run it from a consistent location, or keep the binary and its tasks.txt together.
• Tasks are saved on quit. Exiting with Ctrl+C instead of menu option 5 loses changes made in that session.
• No due dates, priorities, tags, or search — the task model is a description and a done flag.
• No undo, and deletion is immediate.
• Single-user and single-file; there is no locking, so two copies running against the same tasks.txt will overwrite each other.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.