File Processing
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Introduction
Almost all of the program developed before
this is interactive
In interactive environment, input is via
keyboard and output is via screen/monitor
This type of processing is not suitable if it
involves huge amount of input or output to
be entered or be displayed on the screen at
one time
Therefore, file processing can solve the
problem mentioned
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Introduction
Storage of data in variables and array
are temporary.
File are used for permanent retention of
large amount of data.
Two type of files will be considered ;
sequential access file and random
access file.
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Data Hierarchy
Bit 1
Byte 01011025
Field Judy
Record Judy Green
Judy Green
File
Sally Black
Tom Blue
Randy Red
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Files & Stream
C views each file simply as a sequential stream of
bytes.
When a file is opened, a stream is associated with
the file.
The files and their associated streams are
automatically open when program executions begin,
the standard input, the standard output and standard
error.
Stream provides communication channel between
files and program.
For example, standard input stream enable a
program to read data from keyboard, the standard
output stream enable a program to print data on
screen.
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Files & Stream
Opening a file returns a pointer to a
FILE structure.
Standard library provides many
functions for reading data and writing
data to files.
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Creating a sequential file
Consider the following example :
#include<stdio.h> while (!feof(stdin)){
main () { fprintf(cfPtr, "%d %s %.2f\n", account,
int account; name, balance);
char name[30]; printf("?");
float balance; scanf("%d%s%f", &account, name,
FILE *cfPtr; &balance);
if ((cfPtr = fopen("clients.txt", "w")) == }
NULL) fclose(cfPtr);
printf("File cant be opened"); }
else return 0;
{printf("Enter account, name and }
balance.\n");
printf("Enter EOF to end input\n");
printf("?");
scanf("%d%s%f", &account, name,
&balance);
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Creating a sequential file
Output
Enter the account, name and balance.
Enter the EOF character to end input.
? 100 Jones 24.98
? 200 Doe 345.67
? 300 White 0.00
? 400 Stone -42.16
?
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Creating a sequential file
The statement FILE *cfPtr ,
states that cfPtr is a pointer to a FILE structure .
The statement if ((cfPtr = fopen("clients.txt", "w"))
== NULL),
names the file “clients.txt” to be used by the program
and establish communication with the file.
The file pointer cfPtr is assigned a pointer to the FILE
structure for the file open with fopen(takes two
argument, file name & file open mode).
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Creating a sequential file
File mode = r ( open file for reading),
w(create file for writing), a(append;
open or create a for writing at the end
of file), r+(open file for update –
reading and writing), w+(create file for
update), a+(append; open or create file
for update)
If file does not exist, fopen creates that
file.
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Creating a sequential file
The statement while(!feof(stdin)),
uses function feof to determine whether
end-of-file indicator is set for file.
EOF – for unix system and Mac is
<ctrl> d and for IBM PC is <ctrl>z
The statement fprintf(cfPtr, "%d %s
%.2f\n", account, name, balance),
writes data to the file clients.dat
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Creating a sequential file
After user enters end-of-file, the
program closes the clients.dat with
fclose and terminates.
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Reading Data from Sequential File
Data stored in files so that can be retrieved for processing when needed.
Consider this program
#include <stdio.h>
main ()
{ printf(“%-10d%-
int account; 13s%7.2f\n”,account, name,
char name[30]; balance);
float balance; fscanf(cfPtr,
FILE *cfPtr; “%d\t\t%s\t\t%f”,&account, name,
&balance);
if ((cfPtr = fopen("clients.txt", “r")) == NULL)
printf("File cant be opened"); }
else fclose(cfPtr)
{ }
printf(“%-10s%-13s%s\n”, return 0;
“Account”,”Name”, “Balance”); }
fscanf(cfPtr, “%d%s%f”,&account, name,
&balance);
while(!feof(cfPtr)) {
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Reading Data from Sequential File
Output
Account Name Balance
100 Jones 24.98
200 Doe 345.67
300 White 0.00
400 Stone -42.16
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Random Access File
In sequential access file, record in a file
created with the formatted output function
fprintf are not necessarily the same length.
Individual records of a random access file are
normally fixed in length
This record can be accessed directly without
searching through other record. Thus, the
searching will be quicker
It is suitable for the use of airline reservation
system, banking system and other kind of
transaction processing system.
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Random Access File
Because every record in randomly
access file normally fixed in length, data
can be inserted in random access file
without destroying other data.
Data stored previously can also be
updated or deleted without rewriting
the entire file.
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Creating a Randomly Accessed File
Function fwrite is used to transfer a
specified numbers of byte beginning at
a specified location in memory to file.
The data is written beginning at the
location in the file indicated by the file
position pointer.
Function fread transfer a specified
number of bytes from the file specified
by the file position to an area in
memory with a specified address.
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Creating a Randomly Accessed File
Now, when writing an integer instead of
using,
fprintf(fPtr, “%d”, number)
which could print as few as 1 digit or as
many as 11 digit, we can use
fwrite(&number, sizeof(int), 1, fPtr)
which always write 4 bytes from variable
number to the file represented by fPtr.
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Creating a Randomly Accessed File
fread is used to read 4 of those bytes into integer
variable number.
The fread and fwrite functions are capable of reading
and writing arrays of data to and from disk.
The third argument of both is the number of element
in array that should be read from disk or written to
disk.
The preceding fwrite function call writes a single
integer to disk, so third argument is 1.
File processing program rarely write a single field to a
file. Normally, we write one struct at a time.
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Creating a Randomly Accessed File
#include <stdio.h>
struct clientData{ This program shows how to open
int acctNum; a randomly access file, define a
char lastName[15]; record format using struct, write
char firstName[15]; a data to disk, and close the file.
float balance;}; This program initialize all 100
main(){ records of a file “credit.txt” with
int i; empty struct using function
struct clientData blankClient = {0, “ “, “ “, 0.0}; fwrite
FILE *cfPtr;
if((cfPtr = fopen(“credit.txt”, “w”)) = = NULL)
printf(“file cant be open”);
Else
{ for (I = 1; i<=100; i++)
fwrite(&blankClient, sizeof(struct ClientData), 1,
cfPtr);
}
fclose(cfPtr);
return 0;
}
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Writing Data Randomly to a Randomly
Accessed File
#include <stdio.h>
struct clientData{
int acctNum;
char lastName[15];
char firstName[15];
float balance;
};
main(){
FILE *cfPtr;
struct clientData client;
if((cfPtr = fopen(“credit.txt”, “r+”)) = = NULL)
printf(“file cant be open”);
else{
print(“Enter account number(1 to 100, 0 to end input)”);
scanf(“%d”, &client.acct.Num);
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while (client.acctNum != 0){
printf(“Enter lastname, firstname, balance”);
scanf(“%s%s%f, &client.lastName, &client.firstName,
&client.balance);
fseek(cfPtr, (client.acctNum – 1) * sizeof(struct clientData),
SEEK_SET);
fwrite(&client, sizeof(struct clientData), 1, cfPtr);
printf(“Enter account number”);
scanf(“%d”, &client.acctNum);
}
}
fclose(cfPtr);
return 0;
}
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Writing Data Randomly to a Randomly
Accessed File
Output
Enter account number (1 to 100, 0 to end)
? 29
Enter lastname, firstname, balance
?Brown Nancy -24.54
Enter account number (1 to 100, 0 to end)
? 30
Enter lastname, firstname, balance
?Dunn Stacy 314.33
Enter account number (1 to 100, 0 to end)
? 31
Enter lastname, firstname, balance
?Barker Doug 0.00
Enter account number (1 to 100, 0 to end)
?0
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Writing Data Randomly to a Randomly
Accessed File
The statement fseek(cfPtr, (client.acctNum –
1) * sizeof(struct clientData), SEEK_SET);
positions the file position pointer for the file
reference by cfPtr to the byte location
calculated by (accountNum -1) * sizeof(struct
clientData);
Because of the account number is 1 to 100
but the byte positioning is start from 0, thus
the account number need to minus 1.
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Reading Data Randomly from a Randomly Accessed File
#include <stdio.h>
struct clientData{
int acctNum;
char lastName[15];
char firstName[15];
float balance;
};
main(){
FILE *cfPtr;
struct clientData client;
if((cfPtr = fopen(“credit.txt”, “r”)) = = NULL)
printf(“file cant be open”);
else{
printf(“%-6s%-16s%-11s%10s\n”, “Acct”, “LastName”, “ First
Name”, “Balance”);
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while (!feof(cfPtr)){
fread(&client, sizeof(struct clientData), 1, cfPtr);
if (client.acctNum != 0)
printf(“(“%-6s %16s %11s %10.2f\n ”,
client.acctNum, client.lastName, client.firstName,
client.balance);
}
}
fclose (cfPtr);
return 0; }
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Reading Data Randomly from a Randomly
Accessed File
Output
Acct Last Name First Name Balance
29 Brown Nancy -24.54
30 Dunn Stacey 314.33
31 Barker Doug 0.00
fread(&client, sizeof(struct clientData), 1, cfPtr);
Reads the number of bytes determined by sizeof(struct clientData)
from the file reference by cfPtr and stores the data in the structure
client.
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