FILE HANDLING

In order to use files we have to learn about File

I/O i.e. how to write information to a file and
how to read information from a file.
We will see that file I/O is almost identical to the
terminal I/O that we have being using so far.
The primary difference between manipulating
files and doing terminal I/O is that we must
specify in our programs which files we wish to
use.

FILE *fp;
File pointer points to a
structure that
contains about the
file, such as the
location of a buffer,
the character position
in the buffer, whether
the file is being read
or written, and
whether errors or end
of file have occurred.

fp=fopen("d:\\sample.txt","w");
fopen is a library function
used before reading
and writing a file.
FILE *fopen(char *name,
char *mode)
name is a character
string containing the
name of the file.
mode a character
string, which indicates
how one intends to use
the file.

int fclose(FILE *fp);

fclose is the inverse of
fopen, it breaks the
connections between
the file pointer and
the external name
that was established
by fopen, freeing the
file pointer for
another file.

MODE
ropen text file for reading
w write text file for writing; discard previous contents
if any
a
append; open or create text file for writing at end
of file
r+ open text file for update (i.e. reading and writing)
w+ create text file for update, discard previous
contents if any
a+ append; open or create text file for update, writing
at end
Update mode permits reading and writing the same file

int fputc(int c, FILE *fp);

fputc write the
character c to the
file and returns the
character written,
or EOF if an error
occurs.

Writing to a file

int fgetc(FILE *fp);

fgetc returns the next
character from the
stream referred to by file
pointer (fp); it returns
EOF for end of file or
error.

Reading from a file

int fgetc(FILE *fp);

Appending to a file

ASCII Table (reference)

File Line Input and Output

int fputs(char *line, FILE *fp)

fputs writes a string
(which need not contain
a newline) to a file it
returns EOF if an error
occurs, and non
negative otherwise.
Writing

char *fgets(char *line, int maxline,

FILE *fp)
fgets reads the next input
line from file pointer (fp)
into the character array
line. The resulting line is
terminated by \0.

Reading

Formatted Input and Output Files

int fprintf(FILE *stream, const char

*format, )
fprintf converts and writes
output to stream under
the control of format.

Writing

int fscanf(FILE *stream, const char

*format, )
fscanf reads from stream
under control of format,
and assign converted
values through subsequent
arguments, each of which
must be a pointer.

Reading

END..