File Handling in C

What is a File?
• A file is a collection of related data that a
computers treats as a single unit.
• Computers store files to secondary storage so that
the contents of files remain intact when a
computer shuts down.
• When a computer reads a file, it copies the file
from the storage device to memory; when it writes
to a file, it transfers data from memory to the
storage device.
• C uses a structure called FILE (defined in
stdio.h) to store the attributes of a file.
Steps in Processing a File
1. Create the stream via a pointer variable using the
FILE structure:
FILE *p;
2. Open the file, associating the stream name with
the file name.
3. Read or write the data.
4. Close the file.
File Open Modes

from Table 7-1 in Forouzan & Gilberg, p. 400

More on File Open Modes

from Figure 7-4 in Forouzan & Gilberg, p. 401

Additionally,
• r+ - open for reading and writing, start at beginning
• w+ - open for reading and writing (overwrite file)
• a+ - open for reading and writing (append if file
exists)
The basic file operations are

• fopen - open a file- specify how its opened

(read/write) and type (binary/text)
• fclose - close an opened file
• fread - read from a file
• fwrite - write to a file
• fseek/fsetpos - move a file pointer to somewhere in
a file.
• ftell/fgetpos - tell you where the file pointer is
located.
 File Open
• The file open function (fopen) serves two purposes:
• It makes the connection between the physical file and the
stream.
• It creates “a program file structure to store the information” C
needs to process the file.
• Syntax:
• #include<stdio.h>
• FILE *fp;
• ………..
fp=fopen(char *filename,char *mode);
• Fp is file pointer , file name and
modes can be r,w or a;
More On fopen
• The file mode tells C how the program will
use the file.
• The filename indicates the system name and
location for the file.
• We assign the return value of fopen to our
pointer variable:
spData = fopen(“MYFILE.TXT”, “w”);
spData = fopen(“A:\\MYFILE.TXT”, “w”);
More On fopen

from Figure 7-3 in Forouzan & Gilberg, p. 399

Closing a File
• When we finish with a mode, we need to close the
file before ending the program or beginning
another mode with that same file.
• To close a file, we use fclose and the pointer
variable:
fclose(spData);
I/O Files
• There are 3 tyes of I/O functions for
FILES
• For funtions fscanf() and fprintf();
• For strings fgets() and fputs();
• For character fgetc() and fputc();
 fprintf()

Syntax:
fprintf (fp,“format string",list );
Example:
FILE *fp;
int id;
char name[20];
float sal;
fp=fopen(“out.txt”,”w”);
fprintf (fp, "%d %c %f", id, name, sal);
 fscanf()

Syntax:
fscanf (fp,“format string",list);
Example:
FILE *fp;
Fp=fopen(“input.txt”,”r”);
int id;
char name[20];
float sal;
fscanf (fp,“%d %s %f” ,&id, name, &sal);
Read from keyboard and write
into a FILE
#include<stdio.h>
Void main()
{ FILE *fp;
int num;
fp=fopen(“input.dat”, ”w”);
if( fp==NULL)
{ printf(“error to open file\n”);
exit(0);
}
While(scanf(“%d”, &num) !=EOF) // 10 20 30 40 entered from keyboard
{
fprintf( fb, “ %d\n”, num); // data written to file
}
fclose(fp);
}
Read from FILE and display on
screen
#include<stdio.h>
Void main()
{ FILE *fp;
int num;
fp=fopen(“input.dat”, ”r”); // file has data 10 20 30 40
if( fp==NULL)
{ printf(“error to open file\n”);
exit(0);
}
While( fscanf( fp, “%d”, &num) >0 )
{
printf(“ %d\n”, num); // output 10 20 30 40
}
fclose(fp);
}
Read from two files and write into
third file
• Input file :- gedit studname.txt
• gedit studusn.txt

• These files to be created by user

• Output will be available in output.txt
 Fgets()
• fgets() :This function reads string of characters from a
file referred by the file pointer fp .
• The syntax of fgets() is fgets(str,n,fp);
where
fp is file pointer ,it can point to source file of STDIN(keyboard)
str is an array of characters
n represents the number of characters to be read from the file
 fputs()
• fputs() : This function is used to print a string of
characters into a file referred by the file pointer fp.
• The fputs() function returns non negative on success and
EOF on failure.
• The syntax of fputs() is: fputs(str,fp) :
Where
fp is a file pointer .
str is a string variable
The fputs() function writes the content of the string
pointed to by str to the specified stream.
WAP to read a line from KEYBOARD
using fgets()
#include<stdio.h>
Void main() PS
{ char str[15];
char *ps;
printf(“enter the string\n”); 0 1 2 3 9
ps=fgets(str, 10, stdin STR
If ( ps !=NULL)
{ printf(“ the srting is “); puts(str); return; }
Else printf(“ reading unsucessfull\n”);
}
OUT PUT:- THE STRING IS ABCDE
WAP to read a line from FILE using
fgets()
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
{
FILE *fp; char str[15]; char *ps;
fp= fopen(“input.dat”, “r”); ps
If (fp==NULL) A B C D E \n \0
{ printf(“Cannot open file\n”); 0 1 2 3 9
exit(1); } STR
ps=fgets(str, 10, fp);
If ( ps !=NULL)
{ printf(“ the srting is “); puts(str); return; }
Else printf(“ reading unsucessfull\n”);
}
OUT PUT:- THE STRING IS ABCDE
 WAP to read WRITE using fgets()
AND fputs()
#include<stdio.h>
void main()
{ char str[15]; char *ps;
printf(“ enter few lines);
ps=fgets( str , 10 , stdin);
while(ps !=NULL)
{ fputs( str, stdout);
ps=fgets( str , 10 , stdin);
}
}
 WAP to READ from a FILE and WRITE
into three different files using fgets()
#include<stdio.h>
AND fputs()
void main()
{ FILE *fp1, *fpa, *fpb; char str[80]; char *ps;
fp1=fopen( “ input.dat”, “r”);
fpa=fopen(“ out1.dat”, “ w”);
fpb=fopen(“ out2.dat”, “ w”);
while ( ( ps=fgets(str, 80 , fp1))!=NULL)
{ if (*ps== ‘a’) fputs(ps, fpa);
else if (*ps== ‘b’) fputs(ps, fpb);
else fputs(ps, stdout );
}
}
 getc()

Syntax:
identifier = getc (file pointer);
Example:
FILE *fp;
fp=fopen(“input.txt”,”r”);
char ch;
ch = getc (fp);
 putc()
write a single character to the output file, pointed to by
fp.
Example:
FILE *fp;
char ch;
putc (ch,fp);