COMPUTER

PROGRAMMING

File Handling in C
 Files

• File – place on disc where group of related data is

stored
– E.g. your C programs

• High-level programming languages support file

operations:
– Naming
– Opening
– Reading
– Writing
– Closing
 Defining and Opening file

– Filename (e.g. sort.c, input.data)

– Data structure (e.g. FILE)

– Purpose (e.g. reading, writing, appending)

Filename
• String of characters that make up a valid filename

• May contain two parts

– Primary
– Optional period with extension

• Examples: a.out, prog.c, temp, text.out

 Different operations that can be performed on a file

1. Creation of a new file (fopen with attributes as “a” or “a+”

or “w” or “w++”)

2. Opening an existing file (fopen)

3. Reading from file (fscanf or fgetc)

 Different operations that can be performed on a file

4. Writing to a file (fprintf or fputs)

5. Moving to a specific location in a file (fseek, rewind)
6. Closing a file (fclose)
The text highlighted in the brackets denotes the functions used for
performing those operations.
 General format for opening file

FILE *filepointer;

/*variable filepointer is pointer to type FILE*/

So, the file can be opened as:

filepointer = fopen(“filename”, “mode”);

/*opens file with name filename , assigns identifier to fp */

e.g. filePointer = fopen(“fileName.txt”, “w”)

 General format for opening file

• filepointer
– contains all information about file
– Communication link between system and program
• Mode can be
– r open file for reading only
– w open file for writing only
– a open file for appending (adding) data
 Modes
• Writing mode
– if file already exists then contents are deleted,
– else new file with specified name created
• Appending mode
– if file already exists then file opened with contents
safe
– else new file created
• Reading mode
– if file already exists then opened with contents safe
– else error occurs.
 Modes

• “r” – Searches file. If the file is opened successfully fopen( )

loads it into memory and sets up a pointer which points to the first
character in it. If the file cannot be opened fopen( ) returns NULL.

• “w” – Searches file. If the file exists, its contents are

overwritten. If the file doesn’t exist, a new file is created. Returns

NULL, if unable to open file.

 Modes

• “a” – Searches file. If the file is opened successfully fopen( )

loads it into memory and sets up a pointer that points to the last

character in it. If the file doesn’t exist, a new file is created. Returns

NULL, if unable to open file.

Example…..

FILE *p1, *p2;

p1 = fopen(“data”,”r”);

p2= fopen(“results”, w”);

Additional modes

• r+ open to beginning for both reading/writing

• w+ same as w except both for reading and writing

• a+ same as ‘a’ except both for reading and writing

 Closing a file
• File must be closed as soon as all operations on it
completed

• This Ensures
– All outstanding information associated with file
flushed out from buffers
– All links to file broken
– Accidental misuse of file prevented

• If want to change mode of file, then first close and

open again
Examples…..
Syntax: fclose(file_pointer);

Example:

FILE *p1, *p2;

p1 = fopen(“INPUT.txt”, “r”);
p2 =fopen(“OUTPUT.txt”, “w”);
……..
……..
fclose(p1);
fclose(p2);
Operations on files
 Reading from a file
The file read operations can be performed using functions fscanf
or fgets. Both the functions performed the same operations as that
of printf and gets but with an additional parameter, the file
pointer.

So, it depends on you if you want to read the file line by line or
character by character.

FILE * filePointer;

filePointer = fopen(“fileName.txt”, “r”);

fscanf(filePointer, "%s %s %s %d", str1, str2, str3, &year);

 Writing a file

The file write operations can be perfomed by the functions fprintf

and fputs with similarities to read operations.

FILE *filePointer ;

filePointer = fopen(“fileName.txt”, “w”);

fprintf(filePointer, "%s %s %s %d", "We", "are", "in", 2012);

• C provides several different functions for reading/writing

• getc() – read a character

• putc() – write a character
• fprintf() – write set of data values
• fscanf() – read set of data values
• getw() – read integer
• putw() – write integer
getc() and putc()

• handle one character at a time like getchar() and putchar()

• syntax: putc(c,fp1);
– c : a character variable
– fp1 : pointer to file opened with mode w
• syntax: c = getc(fp2);
– c : a character variable
– fp2 : pointer to file opened with mode r
• file pointer moves by one character position after every getc()
and putc()
• getc() returns end-of-file marker EOF when file end reached
 fscanf() and fprintf()

• similar to scanf() and printf()

• in addition provide file-pointer
• given the following
– file-pointer f1 (points to file opened in write mode)
– file-pointer f2 (points to file opened in read mode)
– integer variable i
– float variable f
• Example:
fprintf(f1, “%d %f\n”, i, f);
fprintf(stdout, “%f \n”, f); /*note: stdout refers to screen */
fscanf(f2, “%d %f”, &i, &f);
• fscanf returns EOF when end-of-file reached
 getw() and putw()

• handle one integer at a time

• syntax: putw(i,fp1);
– i : an integer variable
– fp1 : pointer to file ipened with mode w
• syntax: i = getw(fp2);
– i : an integer variable
– fp2 : pointer to file opened with mode r
• file pointer moves by one integer position, data stored in
binary format native to local system
• getw() returns end-of-file marker EOF when file end reached
 Random access to files

• how to jump to a given position (byte number) in a file

without reading all the previous data?
• fseek (file-pointer, offset, position);
• position: 0 (beginning), 1 (current), 2 (end)
• offset: number of locations to move from position
Example: fseek(fp,-m, 1); /* move back by m bytes from current

position */
fseek(fp,m,0); /* move to (m+1)th byte in file */
fseek(fp, -10, 2); /* what is this? */

• ftell(fp) returns current byte position in file

• rewind(fp) resets position to start of file
 EXAMPLE:
FILE WRITING (FILES & STRUCTURE)
#include<stdio.h>
int main( )
{
FILE *fp ;
char another = 'Y' ;
struct emp
{
char name[40] ;
int age ;
float bs ;
};
struct emp e ;

fp = fopen ("record.txt", "w" ) ;

while ( another == 'Y' || another == 'y' )

{
printf ( "\nEnter name, age and basic salary: " ) ;
scanf ( "%s %d %f", e.name, &e.age, &e.bs ) ;
fprintf ( fp, "%s %d %f\n", e.name, e.age, e.bs ) ;
printf ( "Add another record (Y/N) " ) ;
fflush ( stdin ) ;
scanf("%c",&another);
}
fclose ( fp ) ;
return 0;
}
 EXAMPLE:
FILE READING (FILES & STRUCTURE)

#include<stdio.h>
int main( )
{
FILE *fp ;
struct emp
{
char name[40] ;
int age ;
float bs ;
};
struct emp e ;

fp = fopen ("record.txt", "r" ) ;

while ( fscanf ( fp, "%s %d %f", e.name, &e.age, &e.bs ) != EOF )

printf ( "\n%s %d %f", e.name, e.age, e.bs ) ;

fclose ( fp ) ;
return 0;
}
 EXAMPLE:
COPY ONE FILE TO ANOTHER FILE
#include<stdio.h>
int main( )
{
FILE *fp,*fp2 ;
struct emp
{
char name[40] ;
int age ;
float bs ;
};
struct emp e ;

fp = fopen ("record.txt", "r" ) ;

fp2 = fopen ("copy.txt", "w" ) ;

while ( fscanf ( fp, "%s %d %f", e.name, &e.age, &e.bs ) != EOF )

fprintf ( fp2, "%s %d %f\n", e.name, e.age, e.bs ) ;

fclose (fp) ;
fclose (fp2) ;
return 0;
}
 Example
Program to read/write using getc/putc
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{ FILE *fp1;
char c;
f1= fopen(“INPUT”, “w”); /* open file for writing */

while((c=getchar()) != EOF) /*get char from keyboard until

CTL-Z*/
putc(c,f1); /*write a
character to INPUT */

fclose(f1); /* close
INPUT */
f1=fopen(“INPUT”, “r”); /* reopen file */

while((c=getc(f1))!=EOF) /*read character from file INPUT*/

printf(“%c”, c); /* print character to
screen */
 Examples
C program using getw, putw,fscanf, fprintf
#include <stdio.h> #include <stdio.h>
main() main()
{ int i,sum1=0; { int i, sum2=0;
FILE *f1; FILE *f2;
/* open files */ /* open files */
f1 = fopen("int_data.bin","w"); f2 = fopen("int_data.txt","w");
/* write integers to files in binary /* write integers to files in binary and
and text format*/ text format*/
for(i=10;i<15;i++) putw(i,f1); for(i=10;i<15;i++) printf(f2,"%d\n",i);
fclose(f1); fclose(f2);
f1 = fopen("int_data.bin","r"); f2 = fopen("int_data.txt","r");
while((i=getw(f1))!=EOF) while(fscanf(f2,"%d",&i)!=EOF)
{ sum1+=i; { sum2+=i; printf("text file: i=%d\
printf("binary file: i=%d\n",i); n",i);
} /* end while getw */ } /*end while fscanf*/
printf("binary sum=%d,sum1); printf("text sum=%d\n",sum2);
fclose(f1); fclose(f2);
} }