ITC213: STRUCTURED

PROGRAMMING
Bhaskar Shrestha
National College of Computer Studies
Tribhuvan University

Lecture 13: Data Files

Readings: Chapter 12

Data Files
Can be created, updated, and processed by C programs
Are used for permanent storage of large amounts of data
Storage of data in variables and arrays is only temporary
Information stored in a data file can be accessed and altered
whenever necessary

All operations between files and your programs are

carried out by C I/O functions

Bhaskar Shrestha

Program Input/Output
A C program keeps data in RAM in the form of variables
Data can come from some location external to the
program
Data moved from an external location into RAM, where the
program can access it, is called input
Keyboard and disk files are the most common sources of
program input

Data can also be sent to a location external to the

program; this is called output
The most common destinations for output are the screen, a
printer, and disk files
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I/O Devices
Input sources and output destinations are collectively referred to
as devices
The keyboard is a device, the screen is a device, and so on
Some devices (the keyboard) are for input only, others (the
screen) are for output only, and still others (disk files) are for both
input and output
Input sources and output destinations are collectively referred to
as devices
The keyboard is a device, the screen is a device, and so on
Some devices (the keyboard) are for input only, others (the
screen) are for output only, and still others (disk files) are for both
input and output
Bhaskar Shrestha

Streams (1/2)
Whatever the device, and whether its performing input
or output, C carries out all input and output operations
by means of streams
A stream is a sequence of bytes of data
A sequence of bytes flowing into a program is an input stream
A sequence of bytes flowing out of a program is an output
stream

Advantages of Streams
By focusing on streams, you dont have to worry as much
about where theyre going or where they originated
With streams, input/output programming is device independent
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Streams (2/2)
Programmers dont need to write special input/output functions
for each device (keyboard, disk, and so on)

Every C stream is connected to a file

In this context, the term file doesn't refer to a disk file
Rather, it is an intermediate step between the stream that your
program deals with and the actual physical device being used
for input or output

Because streams are largely device independent, the

same function that can write to a disk file can also write
to another type of device such as console
C streams fall into two modes: text and binary
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Text Streams
A text stream consists of sequence of characters, such as text
data being sent to the screen
Text streams are organized into lines, which can be up to 255
characters long and are terminated by an end-of-line, or newline,
character
Certain characters in a text stream are recognized as having
special meaning, such as the newline character
In a text stream, certain character translations may occur as
required by the host environment
For example, a newline may be converted to a carriage return/linefeed pair

Bhaskar Shrestha

Binary Streams
A binary stream is a sequence of bytes
A binary stream can handle any sort of data, including,
but not limited to, text data
Bytes of data in a binary stream arent translated or
interpreted in any special way; they are read and written
exactly as-is
In text stream, end of file is determined by a special
character having ASCII value 26, but in binary stream
end of file is determined by the directory listing of host
environment
Bhaskar Shrestha

Predefined Streams
ANSI C has three predefined streams
These streams are automatically opened when a C program starts
executing and are closed when the program terminates
All standard streams are text streams
Whenever you have used the printf or puts functions to display
text on-screen, you have used the stdout stream
Likewise, when you use gets
or scanf to read keyboard input,
you use the stdin stream

Name Stream

Device

stdin

Keyboard

Standard input

stdout Standard output

Screen

stderr

Screen

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Standard error

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File System Basics

The C File system is composed of several interrelated
functions
The header <stdio.h> provides the prototypes for the I/O
functions and defines these three types: size_t, fpos_t
and FILE
Also defined in <stdio.h> are several macros
NULL, EOF, FOPEN_MAX, SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR,
SEEK_END etc

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Commonly Used C File-System

Functions
Name

Function

fopen

Opens a file

fclose

Closes a file

putc, fputc

Writes a character to a file

getc, fgetc

Reads a character from file

fgets

Reads a string from a file

fputs

Writes a string to a file

fprintf

Is to a file what printf is to the console

fscanf

Is to a file what scanf is to the console

feof

Returns true if end-of-file is reached

ferror

Returns true if an error has occurred

fflush

Flushes a file
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Files
In C, a file may be from a disk file to a terminal or printer
You associate a stream with a specific file by performing an open
operation
Once a file is open, information can be exchanged between it and
your program
You can read from or write to the file

You disassociate a file from a specific stream with a close

operation
When you are done working with the file, you must close the file

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Opening a File
The process of creating a stream linked to a disk file is called
opening the file
When you open a file, it becomes available for reading, writing, or
both
The fopen function opens a stream for use and links a file with
that stream
FILE* fopen(const char *filename,const char *mode);

filename is pointer to a string that make up a valid filename and may

include a path specification
mode is pointer to string that determines how the file will be opened

On successful, fopen returns the file pointer associated with that

file
If fopen fails to open a file, by any reason, it returns NULL
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The File Pointer

A file pointer is a pointer to a structure of type FILE
It points to information that defines various things about
the file
File name, status, current position in the file etc

The file pointer identifies a specific file and is used by

the associated stream to direct operation of the I/O
functions
In order to read or write files, your program needs to use
file pointers
To obtain a file pointer by calling the fopen function
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Legal Values for Mode

Mode

Meaning

Opens an existing file for reading only

Open a new file for writing only. If a file with the specified name exists,
it will be destroyed and a new file is created

Opens an existing file for appending. A new file will be created if the
specified file doesnt exists. New data is appended to the end of the file.

r+

Open an existing file for both reading and writing

w+

Open a new file for both reading and writing. If a file with specified
name exists, it will be destroyed and a new file will be created

a+

Open an existing file for both reading and appending. A new file will be
created if the file with the specified name does not exist.
Bhaskar Shrestha

Add b to specify binary mode. Default is text mode

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fopen Examples
FILE *fp;
fp = fopen("c:\\test.txt", "w");
if (fp == NULL) {
printf("Cannot open file\n");
exit(1);
}
FILE *fp;
fp = fopen("c:\\test.txt", "r+");
if (fp == NULL) {
printf("Cannot open file\n");
exit(1);
}
Bhaskar Shrestha

Creates a new file

C:\test.txt for writing

Opens the file c:\test.txt,

both for reading and
writing

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Closing a File
When youre done using the file, you must close it
The fclose function closes a stream that was opened by a call to
fopen
int fclose(FILE *fp);
where fp is the file pointer returned by the call to fopen
Returns 0 if file is successfully closed
Returns EOF is an error occurs

When a file is closed, it flushes the buffer and does a formal OS

level close
Failure to close a stream may include lost data
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FILE *fp;
char filename[80];
char mode[4];
char response;
do
{
/* input filename and mode */
printf("Enter filename: ");
scanf(" %[^\n]", filename);
printf("Enter mode to open: ");
scanf("%s", mode);
/* try to open the file */
fp = fopen(filename, mode);
if (fp != NULL) /* success? */
{
printf("Successfully opened %s in %s mode\n", filename, mode);
fclose(fp); /* we don't do anything to the file, so close it */
}
else
printf("Failed to open %s in %s mode\n", filename, mode);
printf("Another (Y/N): ");
scanf(" %c", &response); Bhaskar Shrestha
} while (response == 'Y' || response == 'y');

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Writing and Reading to a File (1/2)

A program that uses a disk file can write data to a file,
read data from a file, or a combination of the two
You can write data to a disk file in three ways:
Character output
to save single characters or lines of characters to a file
Use only with text files
main use of character output is to save text (but not numeric)
data in a form that can be read by C, as well as other programs
such as word processors

Formatted output
to save formatted data to a file
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Writing and Reading to a File (2/2)

use formatted output only with text-mode files
primary use of formatted output is to create files containing
text and numeric data to be read by other programs such as
spreadsheets or databases
Dont use if you want to read the data back by a C program

Direct/Unformatted output
to save the contents of a section of memory directly to a disk
file
Use for binary streams only
direct output is the best way to save data for later use by a C
program
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Character Output: putc

C I/O defines two equivalent functions that output a
character: putc and fputc
The putc Function
writes a single character to a specified stream
int putc(int ch, FILE *fp);

ch is the character to output (only the low order byte is used)

fp is the pointer associated with
ch = getchar();
the file
while (ch != EOF) {
putc(ch, fp);
returns the character just written
ch = getchar();
if successful or EOF if an error
}
occurs
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Character Output: fputs

Use to write a line of characters to a stream
Unlike puts, it doesnt add a newline to the end of the string

The fputs function

int fputs(char *str, FILE *fp);

str is a pointer to the null-terminated string to be written
fp is the pointer to type FILE returned by fopen
The string pointed to by str is gets(line);
written to the file
while (*line != '\0') {
strcat(line, "\n");
Returns a nonnegative value if
fputs(line, fp);
successful or EOF on error
gets(line);

}
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Character Input: getc

The functions getc and fgetc are identical and can be
used interchangeably
They input a single character from the specified stream
int getc(FILE *fp);
The argument fp is the pointer returned by fopen when the
file is opened
The function returns the
character that was input
or EOF on error

ch = getc(fp);
while (ch != EOF) {
putchar(ch);
ch = getc(fp);
}

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Character Input: fgets

Use fgets to read a line of characters from a file

char *fgets(char *str, int n, FILE *fp);

str is a pointer to a buffer in which the input is to be stored
n is the maximum number of characters to be input, and
fp is the pointer to type FILE that was returned by fopen when the file
was opened

fgets reads characters from fp and stores in str

Characters are read until a newline is encountered or until n-1
characters have been read, whichever occurs first
If a newline is read, it will be part of string
The resultant string is null terminated
Returns str on successful and NULL, if an error occurs
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Searching for a text in a file

FILE *fp;
char filename[80];
char buffer[256], str[256];
int lineno;
...
fp = fopen(filename, "r");
...
printf("Enter string to search: ");
gets(str);
lineno = 1;
fgets(buffer, 255, fp); /* read a line */
while (!feof(fp)) {
if (strstr(buffer, str) != NULL)
printf("Line %d: %s\n", lineno, buffer);
fgets(buffer, 255, fp);
lineno++;
}
Bhaskar Shrestha
fclose(fp);

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Formatted Output: fprintf

Formatted file output is done with the library function fprintf

int fprintf(FILE *fp, char *fmt, ...);

Here, fp is a file pointer returned by a call to fopen
fmt is the format string
... means, in addition to fp and fmt arguments, fprintf takes zero,
one, or more additional arguments.
These arguments are the names of the variables to be output to the specified
stream

fprintf works just like printf, except that it sends its output
to the stream fp specified in the argument list
fprintf returns the number of characters actually printed. If an
error occurs, a negative number is returned
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FILE *fp;
float array[5] = {10.2, 5.0, 5.55, 6.005, 135};
int i;
fp = fopen("test.txt", "w");
if (fp == NULL) {
printf("Unable to open output file test.txt\n");
exit(1);
}
fprintf(fp, "Here are the %d values of the array:\n", 5);
for (i = 0; i < 5; i++)
fprintf(fp, "array[%d] = %f\n", i, array[i]);
fclose(fp);

After the program is run, the file test.txt contains

Here are the 5 values of the array:
array[0] = 10.200000
array[1] = 5.000000
array[2] = 5.550000
array[3] = 6.005000
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array[4] = 135.000000

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Formatted Input: fscanf

For formatted file input, use the fscanf library function
int fscanf(FILE *fp, const char *fmt, ...);
fp is the pointer to type FILE returned by fopen
fmt is a pointer to the format string that specifies how fscanf is to read the
input
the ellipses (...) indicate one or more additional arguments, the addresses
of the variables where fscanf is to assign the input.

The function fscanf works exactly the same as scanf, except that
characters are taken from the specified stream rather than from
keyboard
fscanf returns the number of arguments that were actually
assigned values. A return value of EOF means that a failure
occurred before the first assignment was made
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FILE *fp;
This program reads a string and an
integer from the keyboard and writes
char s[80];
them to a disk file called test.txt. The
int t;
program then reads the file and
displays the information on the
fp = fopen("test.txt", "w");
screen. After running the program,
if (fp == NULL) {
examine the test.txt file. As you will
printf("Cannot open file\n"); see, it contains human-readable text.
exit(1);
}
printf("Enter a string and number: ");
scanf("%s%d", s, &t);
fprintf(fp, "%s %d", s, t); /* write to file */
fclose(fp);
fp = fopen("test.txt", "r");
if (fp == NULL) {
printf("Cannot open file\n");
exit(1);
}
fscanf(fp, "%s%d", s, &t); /* read from file */
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printf("%s %d", s, t); Bhaskar Shrestha

Direct (Unformatted) I/O

Use direct file I/O, when you want save data to be read
later by the same or a different C program
Direct I/O is used only with binary-mode files
With direct output, blocks of data are written from
memory to disk
Direct input reverses the process:
A block of data is read from a disk file into memory

The direct I/O functions are fread and fwrite

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The fwrite function

The fwrite library function writes a block of data from memory
to a file
int fwrite(void *buf, int size, int count, FILE
*fp);
buf is a pointer to the first byte of memory holding the data to be written to
the file
size specifies the size, in bytes, of the individual data items, and count
specifies the number of items to be written
fp is the pointer to type FILE, returned by fopen when the file was
opened

The fwrite function returns the number of items written on

success; if the value returned is less than count, it means that an
error has occurred
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fwrite examples
double x = 12e-6;
/* write a double value x */
fwrite(&x, sizeof(double), 1, fp);
int arr[10];
...
/* write an array arr*/
fwrite(arr, sizeof(int), 10, fp);
struct address addr[50], myaddr;
...
/* write a structure variable myaddr*/
fwrite(&myaddr, sizeof(struct address), 1, fp);
/* write the entire structure array addr */
fwrite(addr, sizeof(struct address), 50, fp);
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The fread function

The fread library function reads a block of data from a file into
memory
int fread(void *buf, int size, int count, FILE
*fp);
buf is a pointer to the first byte of memory that receives the data read from
the file
size specifies the size, in bytes, of the individual data items being read,
and count specifies the number of items to read
fp is the pointer to type FILE that was returned by fopen when the file
was opened

The fread function returns the number of items read; this can be
less than count if end-of-file was reached or an error occurred
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fread examples
double x;
/* read a double value x */
fread(&x, sizeof(double), 1, fp);
int arr[10];
...
/* read an array arr*/
fread(arr, sizeof(int), 10, fp);
struct address addr[50], myaddr;
...
/* read a structure variable myaddr*/
fread(&myaddr, sizeof(struct address), 1, fp);
/* read entire structure array addr */
fread(addr, sizeof(struct address), 50, fp);
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File Buffer
When a stream linked to a disk file is created, a buffer is
automatically created and associated with the stream
A buffer is a block of memory used for temporary
storage of data being written to and read from the file
Buffers are needed because disk drives are blockoriented devices, which means that they operate most
efficiently when data is read and written in blocks of a
certain size
The size of the ideal block differs, depending on the
specific hardware in use
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Use of Buffer
Buffer serves as an interface between the stream and the disk
hardware
As a program writes data to the stream, the data is saved in the
buffer until the buffer is full, and then the entire contents of the
buffer are written, as a block, to the disk
An analogous process occurs when reading data from a disk file
During program execution, data that a program wrote to the disk
might still be in the buffer, not on the disk
If your program hangs up, if there's a power failure, or if some other
problem occurs, the data that's still in the buffer might be lost, and you
won't know what's contained in the disk file
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Flushing Buffer (1/2)

For a output stream, flushing buffer means writing the
buffered data to the file and clearing it contents
For an input stream, flushing buffer means clearing its
buffer contents
To flush a buffer contents use fflush
int fflush(FILE* fp);
fp is a file pointer to stream, whose buffer is to be flushed
Returns 0 if successful, EOF otherwise
If fp is NULL, all files opened for output are flushed
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Flushing Buffer (2/2)

The buffer is automatically flushed, when a stream is
closed with a call to fclose
All opened files are automatically closed when the
program terminates normally, hence all opened streams
are flushed
Use flushall to flush the buffers of all open streams
int flushall(void);

returns the number of open streams

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Sequential Versus Random File Access (1/2)

Every open file has a file position indicator associated
with it
Position indicator specifies where read and write
operations take place in the file
The position is always given in terms of bytes from the
beginning of the file
When a new file is opened, the position indicator is always at
the beginning of the file, position 0
When an existing file is opened, the position indicator is at the
end of the file if the file was opened in append mode, or at the
beginning if the file was opened in any other mode
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Sequential Versus Random File Access (2/2)

Input/output functions make use of the position indicator
Writing and reading operations occur at the location of
the position indicator and update the position indicator
as well
For example, if you open a file for reading, and 10 bytes
are read, you read the first 10 bytes in the file (the bytes
at positions 0 through 9). After the read operation, the
position indicator is at position 10, and the next read
operation begins there

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The ftell and fseek function

Use ftell and fseek to determine and change the value of the
file position indicator
By controlling the position indicator, you can perform random file
access
Here, random means that you can read data from, or write data to, any
position in a file without reading or writing all the preceding data

The ftell function

long ftell(FILE *fp);
Returns the location of the current position of the file associated with fp.
If a failure occurs, returns -1
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The fseek function

The fseek function sets the file position indicator
int fseek(FILE *fp, long numbytes, int
origin);
fp is a file pointer returned by fopen
numbytes is the number of bytes from origin, which will
become the end current position
origin can be one of the
macros shown in the table

Origin

Macro Name

Beginning of file SEEK_SET

Current Position

SEEK_CUR

End of file

SEEK_END

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Examples of ftell and fseek

long pos;
/* seek 0 bytes from beginning of file */
fseek(fp, 0, SEEK_SET);
pos = ftell(fp);
printf("%ld\n", pos); /* prints 0 */
/* seek 0 bytes from end of file */
fseek(fp, 0, SEEK_END);
pos = ftell(fp);
printf("%ld\n", pos); /* prints file size in bytes */
/* seek pos bytes from current position */
fseek(fp, -pos, SEEK_CUR);
pos = ftell(fp);
printf("%ld\n", pos); /* prints 0 why? */
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Other file related functions

Name

Function

clearerr

Resets the error flag of the associated stream

fgetpos

Gets the current value of file position indicator

freopen

Opens an existing opened file in another mode

fsetpos

Moves the file position indicator

remove

Deletes a file

rename

Changes the name of an existing file

rewind

Resets the file position indicator to beginning of file

setbuf

Sets the buffer to use or turns off buffering

tmpfile

Opens a temporary file for reading/writing

tmpnam

Generates a unique filename

ungetc

Puts a character in the buffer, such that it can be obtained

from next read
operation
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