Files in C

Generally, a file is used to store user data in a computer. In other words, computer stores the data

using files.

File is a collection of data that stored on secondary memory like harddisk of a computer.

C programming language supports two types of files and they are as follows...

 Text Files (or) ASCII Files

 Binary Files

Text File (or) ASCII File - The file that contains ASCII codes of data like digits, alphabets and symbols
is called text file (or) ASCII file.
Binary File - The file that contains data in the form of bytes (0's and 1's) is called as binary file.
Generally, the binary files are compiled version of text files.

File Operations in C
The following are the operations performed on files in c programming langauge...

 Creating (or) Opening a file

 Reading data from a file
 Writing data into a file
 Closing a file

All the above operations are performed using file handling functions available in C.

Creating (or) Opening a file

To create a new file or open an existing file, we need to create a file pointer of FILE type. Following is
the sample code for creating file pointer.
File *f_ptr ;
We use the pre-defined method fopen() to create a new file or to open an existing file. There are
different modes in which a file can be opened. Consider the following code...
File *f_ptr ;
*f_ptr = fopen("abc.txt", "w") ;
The above example code creates a new file called abc.txt if it does not exists otherwise it is opened
in writing mode.
In C programming language, there different modes are available to open a file and they are shown in
the following table.
 S.
No. Mode Description

1 r Opens a text file in reading mode.

2 w Opens a text file in wirting mode.

3 a Opens a text file in append mode.

4 r+ Opens a text file in both reading and writing mode.

5 w+ Opens a text file in both reading and writing mode. It set the cursor position to the b
it exists.

6 a+ Opens a text file in both reading and writing mode. The reading operation is perform
and writing operation is performed at the end of the file.

Note - The above modes are used with text files only. If we want to work with binary files we use
rb, wb, ab, rb+, wb+ and ab+.

Reading from a file

The reading from a file operation is performed using the following pre-defined file handling methods.

1. getc()
2. getw()
3. fscanf()
4. fgets()
5. fread()

 getc( *file_pointer ) - This function is used to read a character from specified file which is
opened in reading mode. It reads from the current position of the cursor. After reading the
character the cursor will be at next character.

Example Program to illustrate getc() in C.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>

int main(){

FILE *fp;
 char ch;
clrscr();
fp = fopen("MySample.txt","r");
printf("Reading character from the file: %c\n",getc(fp));
ch = getc(fp);
printf("ch = %c", ch);
fclose(fp);
getch();
return 0;
}

Output

 getw( *file_pointer ) - This function is used to read an integer value form the specified file
which is opened in reading mode. If the data in file is set of characters then it reads ASCII
values of those characters.

Example Program to illustrate getw() in C.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
int main(){

FILE *fp;
int i,j;
clrscr();
fp = fopen("MySample.txt","w");
putw(65,fp); // inserts A
putw(97,fp); // inserts a
fclose(fp);
 fp = fopen("MySample.txt","r");
i = getw(fp); // reads 65 - ASCII value of A
j = getw(fp); // reads 97 - ASCII value of a
printf("SUM of the integer values stored in file = %d", i+j); // 65 + 97
= 162
fclose(fp);
getch();

return 0;
}

Output

 fscanf( *file_pointer, typeSpecifier, &variableName ) - This function is used to read multiple

datatype values from specified file which is opened in reading mode.

Example Program to illustrate fscanf() in C.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
int main(){
char str1[10], str2[10], str3[10];
int year;
FILE * fp;
clrscr();
fp = fopen ("file.txt", "w+");
fputs("We are in 2016", fp);
rewind(fp); // moves the cursor to begining of the file
fscanf(fp, "%s %s %s %d", str1, str2, str3, &year);
printf("Read String1 - %s\n", str1 );
 printf("Read String2 - %s\n", str2 );
printf("Read String3 - %s\n", str3 );
printf("Read Integer - %d", year );
fclose(fp);
getch();

return 0;
}

Output

 fgets( variableName, numberOfCharacters, *file_pointer ) - This method is used for

reading a set of characters from a file which is opened in reading mode starting from the current
cursor position. The fgets() function reading terminates with reading NULL character.

Example Program to illustrate fgets() in C.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>

int main(){
FILE *fp;
char *str;
clrscr();
fp = fopen ("file.txt", "r");
fgets(str,6,fp);
printf("str = %s", str);
fclose(fp);
getch();
 return 0;
}

Output

 fread( source, sizeofReadingElement, numberOfCharacters, FILE *pointer ) - This

function is used to read specific number of sequence of characters from the specified file which
is opened in reading mode.

Example Program to illustrate fgets() in C.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>

int main(){

FILE *fp;
char *str;
clrscr();
fp = fopen ("file.txt", "r");
fread(str,sizeof(char),5,fp);
str[strlen(str)+1] = 0;
printf("str = %s", str);
fclose(fp);
getch();

return 0;
}

Output
Writing into a file
The writing into a file operation is performed using the following pre-defined file handling methods.

1. putc()
2. putw()
3. fprintf()
4. fputs()
5. fwrite()

 putc( char, *file_pointer ) - This function is used to write/insert a character to the specified
file when the file is opened in writing mode.

Example Program to illustrate putc() in C.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
int main(){
FILE *fp;
char ch;
clrscr();
fp = fopen("C:/TC/EXAMPLES/MySample.txt","w");
putc('A',fp);
ch = 'B';
putc(ch,fp);
fclose(fp);
getch();
return 0;
}

Output
 putw( int, *file_pointer ) - This function is used to writes/inserts an integer value to the
specified file when the file is opened in writing mode.

Example Program to illustrate putw() in C.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
int main(){
FILE *fp;
int i;
clrscr();
fp = fopen("MySample.txt","w");
putw(66,fp);
i = 100;
putw(i,fp);
fclose(fp);
getch();
return 0;
}

Output
 fprintf( *file_pointer, "text" ) - This function is used to writes/inserts multiple lines of text with
mixed data types (char, int, float, double) into specified file which is opened in writing mode.

Example Program to illustrate "fprintf()" in C.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
int main(){
FILE *fp;
char *text = "\nthis is example text";
int i = 10;
clrscr();
fp = fopen("MySample.txt","w");
fprintf(fp,"This is line1\nThis is line2\n%d", i);
fprintf(fp,text);
fclose(fp);
getch();
return 0;
}

Output

 fputs( "string", *file_pointer ) - TThis method is used to insert string data into specified file
which is opened in writing mode.

Example Program to illustrate fputs() in C.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
int main(){
FILE *fp;
 char *text = "\nthis is example text";
clrscr();
fp = fopen("MySample.txt","w");
fputs("Hi!\nHow are you?",fp);
fclose(fp);
getch();
return 0;
}

Output

 fwrite( “StringData”, sizeof(char), numberOfCharacters, FILE *pointer ) - This function is

used to insert specified number of characters into a binary file which is opened in writing mode.

Example Program to illustrate fwrite() in C.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
int main(){
FILE *fp;
char *text = "Welcome to C Language";
clrscr();
fp = fopen("MySample.txt","wb");
fwrite(text,sizeof(char),5,fp);
fclose(fp);
getch();
return 0;
}
 Output

Closing a file
Closing a file is performed using a pre-defined method fclose().
fclose( *f_ptr )
The method fclose() returns '0'on success of file close otherwise it returns EOF (End Of File).

Cursor Positioning Functions in Files

C programming language provides various pre-defined methods to set the cursor position in files. The
following are the methods available in c, to position cursor in a file.

1. ftell()
2. rewind()
3. fseek()

 ftell( *file_pointer ) - This function returns the current position of the cursor in the file.

Example Program to illustrate ftell() in C.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
int main(){
FILE *fp;
int position;
clrscr();
fp = fopen ("file.txt", "r");
position = ftell(fp);
printf("Cursor position = %d\n",position);
fseek(fp,5,0);
position = ftell(fp);
 printf("Cursor position = %d", position);
fclose(fp);
getch();
return 0;
}

Output

 rewind( *file_pointer ) - This function is used reset the cursor position to the beginning of the
file.

Example Program to illustrate rewind() in C.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
int main(){
FILE *fp;
int position;
clrscr();
fp = fopen ("file.txt", "r");
position = ftell(fp);
printf("Cursor position = %d\n",position);
fseek(fp,5,0);
position = ftell(fp);
printf("Cursor position = %d\n", position);
rewind(fp);
position = ftell(fp);
printf("Cursor position = %d", position);
fclose(fp);
getch();
 return 0;
}

Output

 fseek( *file_pointer, numberOfCharacters, fromPosition ) - This function is used to set the

cursor position to the specific position. Using this function we can set the cursor position from
three different position they are as follows.
o from beginning of the file (indicated with 0)
o from current cursor position (indicated with 1)
o from ending of the file (indicated with 2)

Example Program to illustrate fseek() in C.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
int main(){
FILE *fp;
int position;
clrscr();
fp = fopen ("file.txt", "r");
position = ftell(fp);
printf("Cursor position = %d\n",position);
fseek(fp,5,0);
position = ftell(fp);
printf("Cursor position = %d\n", position);
fseek(fp, -5, 2);
position = ftell(fp);
printf("Cursor position = %d", position);
fclose(fp);
getch();
return 0;
}
Output