Chapter-12
File Management in C
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Introduction
• A file is a place on the disk where a group of related data is stored.
• Important high-level I/O functions available in C Library are:-
Function name Operation
fopen() Creates a new file for use.
Opens an existing file for use.
fclose() Close a file which has been opened for use
getc() Reads a character from a file
putc() Writes a character to a file
fprintf() Writes a set of data values to a file
fscanf() Reads a set of data values from a file
getw() Reads an integer from a file
putw() Writes an integer to a file
fseek() Sets the position to a desired point in a file
ftell() Gives the current position in the file (in bytes from beginning)
rewind() Sets the position to the beginning of the file
Defining and Opening a File
• The following must be specified to the OS about the file:-
• Filename- String of characters. E.g. input.data, PROG.C, Text.out
• Data Structure- of a file is defined as FILE in standard I/O library.
• Purpose- What to do with the file.
• General format for declaring and opening a file:-
FILE *fp;
fp = fopen(“filename”, “mode”);
• FILE *fp; declares fp as pointer to FILE data type.
• mode can be one of the following:-
• r open the file for reading only. (file not exists - error)
• w open the file for writing only. (file not exists – create new
file, file exist – delete contents)
• a open the file for appending (or adding) data to it.
(Current contents are not deleted)
• FILE *p1, *p2;
• p1 = fopen(“data”, “r”);
• p2 = fopen(“results”, “w”);
• The file data is opened for reading and results is opened for writing.
• If results file already exists, its content is deleted and the file is
opened as a new file.
• If data does not exists, an error will occur.
• Multiple files can be opened and use at a time.
Closing a File
• The general form is:
• fclose(file_pointer); //close file associated with the FILE
pointer file_pointer
• Example:
----
FILE *p1, *p2;
p1 = fopen(“INPUT”, “w”);
p2 = fopen(“OUTPUT”, “r”);
----
----
fclose(p1);
fclose(p2);
Input/Output
• getc and putc:- Analogous to getchar and putchar functions and
handle one character at a time.
• e.g- putc(c, f1); //Writes character in variable c to file
associated with FILE pointer fp1.
• getc is used to read one character from a file that is opened in read
mode.
• e.g.- c = getc(fp2); //read character from file whose file pointer is fp2
• The file pointer moves by one character position for every operation
of getc and putc.
• Reading terminated when EOF is encountered.
Fig. 12.1 Character oriented read/write operations on a file
• getw and putw functions:-
• Integer-oriented functions.
• Similar to getc and putc functions and are used to read and write
integer values.
• General form are:-
• putw(integer, fp);
• getw(fp);
(Contd.)
(Contd.)
Contents of ODD file
111 333 555 777 999 121 343 565
Contents of EVEN file
222 444 666 888 0 232 454
Fig. 12.2 Operations on integer data
• The fprintf and fscanf functions:-
• They can handle group of mixed data simultaneously.
• General form of fprintf is:-
• fprintf(fp, “control string”, list);
• fp is a file pointer associated with a file opened for writing.
• control strings- contains output specifications for the items in
the list. The list may include variables, constants and strings.
• e.g- fprintf(f1, “%s %d %f”, name, age, 7.5);
• General format of fscanf is:-
• fscanf(fp, “control string”, list);
• read items in the list from the file specified by fp, according to
the specifications contained in the control string.
• E.g- fscanf(f2, “%s %d”, item, &quantity);
(Contd.)
Fig. 12.3 Operations on mixed data types
Command Line Arguments
• A Command Line Argument is a parameter supplied to a program
when the program is invoked.
• This parameter may represent a filename the program should
process.
• e.g- C > PROGRAM X_FILE Y_FILE
• //Where PROGRAM is filename where executable program is
stored.
• Main function can take two arguments argc and argv.
• The information contained in the command line is passed on to the program
through these arguments, when main is called by the system.
• For above e.g. argc is 3, and argv is array of three pointerss to
string:
• argv[0] -> PROGRAM
• argv[1] -> X_FILE
• argv[2] -> Y_FILE
• In order to access the command line arguments, the main function
and its parameters are declared as follows:
main (int argc, char *argv[ ]){
…….
…….
}
(Contd.)
Fig. 12.7 Use of command line arguments
