File Handling in C Programming

Lecture By
Mr. Salunke R. B.
on
File Handling in C
Programming
To
Assistant Professor & Head,
Department of Computer Application,
Dada Patil Mahavidyalaya, Karjat,
Dist Ahmednagar, State Maharashtra

Topic
• File – Definition. Types of File, File Opening modes
• File Functions –
fopen(), fclose(), fgetc(), fputc(), fgets(),
fputs(), fscanf(), fprintf(), getw(), putw(),
fread(), fwrite(), fseek(),ftell() etc
• File Management –
Opening/Closing a File,
Input/Output operations on ,
Error Handling During I/O Operations,
Command Line Arguments
• Random Access File

File
• Definition-
‚A Collection of data or Information that are stored on computer
permanently known as File‛
• Types of files –
Text File
Binary File
• File Opening Modes –
Read- ‚r‛ , Write-‚w‛, Append-‚a‛
• r – Opens a file in read mode and sets pointer to the first character
in the file. It returns null if file does not exist.
• w – Opens a file in write mode. It returns null if file could not be
opened. If file exists, data are overwritten.
• a – Opens a file in append mode. It returns null if file couldn’t be
opened.

File Functions
• fopen() – To open file
• fclose() – To close file
• fgetc() – To read character from file
• fputc() – To write or add character to file
• fgets() - To read string / line from file
• fputs() - To write string / line to file
• fscanf() – To scan data from file
• fprintf() – To write data into file
• getw() – To read Integer values from file
• putw() – To write Integer values to file
• fread() – To read character
• fwrite() – To write character
• fseek() – To read data
• ftell() – go to End of file

functions Description
fopen () fopen () function creates a new file or opens an existing file.
fclose () fclose () function closes an opened file.
getw () getw () function reads an integer from file.
putw () putw () functions writes an integer to file.
fgetc () fgetc () function reads a character from file.
fputc () fputc () functions write a character to file.
gets () gets () function reads line from keyboard.
puts () puts () function writes line to o/p screen.
fgets () fgets () function reads string from a file, one line at a time.
fputs () fputs () function writes string to a file.
feof () feof () function finds end of file.
fgetchar () fgetchar () function reads a character from keyboard.
fprintf () fprintf () function writes formatted data to a file.
fscanf () fscanf () function reads formatted data from a file.
fputchar ()
fputchar () function writes a character onto the output screen
from keyboard input.
fseek () fseek () function moves file pointer position to given location.
SEEK_SET
SEEK_SET moves file pointer position to the beginning of the
file.
SEEK_CUR SEEK_CUR moves file pointer position to given location.
SEEK_END SEEK_END moves file pointer position to the end of file.

ftell () ftell () function gives current position of file pointer.
rewind ()
rewind () function moves file pointer position to the
beginning of the file.
getc () getc () function reads character from file.
getch () getch () function reads character from keyboard.
getche ()
getche () function reads character from keyboard and
echoes to o/p screen.
getchar () getchar () function reads character from keyboard.
putc () putc () function writes a character to file.
putchar () putchar () function writes a character to screen.
printf () printf () function writes formatted data to screen.
sprinf () sprinf () function writes formatted output to string.
scanf () scanf () function reads formatted data from keyboard.
sscanf () sscanf () function Reads formatted input from a string.
remove () remove () function deletes a file.
fflush () fflush () function flushes a file.

1. EXAMPLE PROGRAM FOR FILE OPEN,
FILE WRITE AND FILE CLOSE
/ * Open, write and close a file : */
# include <stdio.h>
# include <string.h>
void main( )
{
FILE *fp ;
char data[50];
// opening an existing file
printf( "Opening the file test.c in write
mode" ) ;
fp = fopen("test.c", "w") ;
if ( fp == NULL )
{
printf( "Could not open file test.c" ) ;
return 1;
}
printf( "n Enter some text from keyboard‛

‚ to write in the file test.c" ) ;
// getting input from user
while ( strlen ( gets( data ) ) > 0 )
{
// writing in the file
fputs(data, fp) ;
fputs("n", fp) ;
}
// closing the file
printf("Closing the file test.c") ;
fclose(fp) ;
getch();
}
Output
Opening the file test.c in write mode
Enter some text from keyboard to write
in the file test.c
Hai, How are you?
Closing the file test.c

File Management –
• Opening/Closing a File
• Input / Output operations on
• Error Handling During I/O Operations
• Command Line Arguments

Open File
• Declaration: FILE *fopen (const char *filename, const char *mode)
• fopen() function is used to open a file to perform operations such as
reading, writing etc. In a C program, we declare a file pointer and
use fopen() as below. fopen() function creates a new file if the
mentioned file name does not exist.
• FILE *fp;
fp=fopen (‚filename‛, ‛‘mode‛);
• Where,
fp – file pointer to the data type ‚FILE‛.
filename – the actual file name with full path of the file.
mode – refers to the operation that will be performed on the file.
Example: r, w, a, r+, w+ and a+. Please refer below the description
for these mode of operations.

Close File
• Declaration: int fclose(FILE *fp);
• fclose() function closes the file that is being pointed by
file pointer fp. In a C program, we close a file as below.
fclose (fp);

Read file - Line by Line
• Declaration: char *fgets(char *string, int n, FILE *fp)
• fgets function is used to read a file line by line. In a C
program, we use fgets function as below.
fgets (buffer, size, fp);
• where,
buffer – buffer to put the data in.
size – size of the buffer
fp – file pointer

Write into file
• Declaration:
int fprintf(FILE *fp, const char *format, …);fprintf()
function writes string into a file pointed by fp. In a C
program, we write string into a file as below.
fprintf (fp, ‚some data‛); or
fprintf (fp, ‚text %d‛, variable_name);

Command Line Arguments in C
• The arguments passed from command line are called
command line arguments. These arguments are handled
by main() function.
• To support command line argument, you need to change
the structure of main() function as given below.
• int main(int argc, char *argv[] )
• Here, argc counts the number of arguments. It counts the
file name as the first argument.
• The argv[] contains the total number of arguments. The
first argument is the file name always.

Program
#include <stdio.h>
int main( int argc, char *argv[] )
{
if( argc == 2 )
{
printf("The argument supplied is %sn", argv[1]);
}
else if( argc > 2 )
{
printf("Too many arguments supplied.n");
}
else
{
printf("One argument expected.n");
}
}
You can run this program by
1. Go File Menu
2.Select Doss Shell Option
3. Type Program Name
4. and Type parameters

Random Access File
#include <stdio.h>
int main () {
FILE *fp;
int c;
fp = fopen("file.txt","w+");
fputs("This is study.com", fp);
// we are using fseek to shift the file //
pointer to the 7th position
fseek( fp, 7, SEEK_SET );
//Now we overwrite C programming // in
the 7th position
fputs(" C Programming", fp);
//now we print the current position of
// the file pointer using ftell
printf("The current position of the file
pointer is: %ldn", ftell(fp));
//we take the file pointer to the
// beginning of the file
rewind(fp);
//now we verify if rewind() worked
// using ftell
printf("The current position of the file
pointer is: %ldn", ftell(fp));

while(1)
{
c = fgetc(fp);
if( feof(fp) )
{
break;
}
printf("%c", c);
}
fclose(fp);
return(0);
}
• Output
The current position of the file pointer is: 21
The current position of the file pointer is: 0
This is C Programming

File Handling in C Programming

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