C++ :: Newline Character Not Being Picked Up In A Conditional Statement

I have the following code:

Code:

while (lineread != "
")
{
getline(ifs,lineread);
}

In essence, it reads an input file, line by line until it hits a line only containing a newline character. So if the input text file is:

27
GC0123456
102905908801170--
2034068010201360
3039077011601400
4043086012901400
504709401400
6051010101400

[code]....

It should exit the while loop after hitting line 6. What happens however is that it goes into a perpetual loop and doesnt exit the while loop upon reading line 6.

What I did was changed the code to:

Code: while (lineread != "*")
{
getline(ifs,lineread);
} and the input file to:
27
GC0123456
102905908801170--
2034068010201360
3039077011601400
4043086012901400

[code]....

and finally it stops after line 6. In this case, merely changing the " " conditional character to a simple asterisk character "*" fixes the problem.

However I wish to keep the input text file as is with the newlines, so how do I make it exit the while loop when detecting a as a line?