Unit-10
Files and File Handling in C
Concept of file
File is a collection of related data placed on the disk. C support the concept of files through which data can be
stored on the disk or secondary storage device. The stored data can be read whenever required.
printf
scanf
Input Memory Output
fputc fgetc
fputs fgets
fprintf fscanf
fwrite fread
Data file stored in a secondary
storage device
Opening a File
A file must be opened before any I/O operations performed on that file. The process of establishing a
connection between the program and file is called opening the file. A structure named FILE is defined in the file
stdio.h that contains all information about the file like name, status, buffer size, current position, end of file
status etc. All these details are hidden from the programming and the operating system takes care of all these
things.
A file pointer is a pointer to a structure of type FILE. Whenever a file is opened, a structure of type FILE is
associated with it and a file pointer that points to this structure identifies this file.
Eg:
FILE *fp;
The function fopen ( ) is used to open a file.
Eg:
fp=fopen(“path:\\filename.ext”,”file_operation_mode”);
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Closing of file
The file that was opened using fopen ( ) function must be closed when no more operations are to be performed
on it. After closing the file, connection between file and program is broken.
On closing the file, all the buffers associated with it are flushed i.e all the data that is in the buffer is written to
the file. The buffers allocated by the system for the files are freed after the file is closed, so that these buffers
can be available for other files.
Although all the files are closed automatically when the program terminates, but sometimes it may be necessary
to close the file by using fclose( ) function.
Modes
The different file modes that can be used in opening file are:
1. “w” (write) If the file doesn‟t exist then this mode creates a new file for writing, and if the file
already exists then the previous data is erased and the new data entered is written to the
file.
2. “a” (append) If the file doesn‟t exist then this mode creates a new file and if the file already exists
then the new data entered is appended at the end of existing data. In this mode, the data
existing in the file is not erased as in “w” mode.
3. “r” (read) This mode is used for opening an existing file for reading purpose only. The file to be
opened must exist and the previous data of the file is not erased.
4. “w+” (write + read) This mode is same as “w” mode but in this mode we can also read and modify the data.
If the file doesn‟t exist then a new file is created and if the file exists then previous data
is erased.
5. “r+” (read + write) This mode is same as “r” mode but in this mode we can also write and modify existing
data. The file to be opened must exist and the previous data of file is not erased. Since
we can add new data and modify existing data so this mode is also called updata mode.
6. “a+” (append + read) This mode is same as the “a” mode but in this mode we can also read the data stored in
the file. If the file doesn‟t exist, a new file is created and if the file already exists then
new data is appended at the end of existing data. We cannot modify existing data in this
mode.
7. “wb” Binary file opened in write mode.
8. “ab” Binary file opened in append mode.
9. “rb” Binary file opened in read mode.
10. “wb+” Create a binary file for read/write.
11. “rb+” Open a binary file for read/write.
12. “ab+” Append a binary file for read/write.
Text mode
In text mode every digit or text are stored as a character and while reading the content back, the
conversion is required from character to appropriate format and takes lots of space.
Character I/O, string I/O, and formatted I/O use text mode.
If 3.14159 is stored in character mode file size would be 8 bytes (counts each character including
decimal and EOF).
Binary mode
In binary mode every digit or text is stored in binary format and while reading the content no conversion
is necessary and takes little space.
fread ( ) and fwrite ( ) are used in binary mode.
If 3.14159 is stored in character mode file size would be 4 bytes.
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Input/Output Functions
The functions used for file input/output are
1. Character I/O
a. fputc( )
This function writes a character to the specified file at the current file position and then increments the
file position pointer.
b. fgetc( )
This function reads a single character from a given file and increments the file pointer.
c. getc( ) and putc( )
The operation of getc( ) and putc( ) are exactly similar to that of fgetc( ) and fputc( ) , the only difference
is that the former two are defined as macros while the latter two are functions.
2. Integer I/O
a. putw( )
This function writes an integer value to the file pointed to by file_pointer.
b. getw( )
This function returns the integer value from the file associated with file_pointer.
3. String I/O
a. fputs( )
This function writes the null terminated string pointed by given character pointer to a file.
b. fgets()
This function is used to read characters from a file and these characters are stored in the string pointed
by a character pointer.
4. Formatted I/O
a. fprintf( )
This function is same as the printf( ) function but it writes formatted data into the file instead of the
standard output(screen). This function has same parameters as in printf( ) but it has one additional
parameter which is a pointer of FILE type, that points to the file to which the output is to be written.
b. fscanf( )
This function is similar to the scanf( ) function but it reads data from file instead of standard input, so it
has one more parameter which is a pointer of FILE type and it points to the file from which data will be
read.
5. Block Read/Write
a. fwrite( )
This function is used for writing an entire block to a given file.
b. fread( )
This function is used to read an entire block from a given file.
Random file processing
In this technique the content are stored sequentially and read back the content from any position of the file. And
it can be performed using some function like rewind( ), fseek( ) and ftell( ).
rewind( )
The rewind( ) function places the file pointer to the beginning of the file.
rewind(file_pointer);
fseek( )
This function is used for setting the file position pointer at the specified byte.
fseek(file_pointer,offset,offset_initial);
ftell( )
This function returns the current position of the file position pointer. The value is counted from beginning of the
file.
position=ftell(fp); where position is long int.
3
Write a program to write name, symbolno and address of „n‟ students into a file named “student.txt” and
display the record of students in appropriate format.
#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
void main()
{
struct student
{
int sno;
char name[15];
char add[15];
};
struct student st;
FILE *fp;
fp=fopen("student.txt","w+");
int i,n;
clrscr();
printf("How many students are there: ");
scanf("%d",&n);
for(i=0;i<n;i++)
{
printf("\nEnter symbolno, name and address of student: ");
scanf("%d%s%s",&st.sno,st.name,st.add);
fwrite(&st,sizeof(st),1,fp);
}
rewind(fp);
printf("\nSymbno\tName\tAddress");
while(fread(&st,sizeof(st),1,fp)==1)
{
printf("\n%d\t%s\t%s",st.sno,st.name,st.add);
}
fclose(fp);
getch();
}
Output
4
Write a program to delete and rename the file.
#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
void main()
{
char str[20];
FILE *fp;
clrscr();
fp=fopen("fil.txt","w");
printf("\nInput string: ");
scanf("%s",str);
fprintf(fp,"%s",str);
fclose(fp);
rename("fil.txt","newfil.txt"); /* rename the file name to newfil.txt */
remove("newfil.txt"); /* removes(delete) file newfil.txt */
getch();
}
Write a program to copy contents of one file to another
#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
void main()
{
FILE *fp1,*fp2;
char ch;
clrscr();
fp1=fopen("abc.txt","r");
fp2=fopen("xyz.txt","w");
while((ch=getc(fp1))!=EOF)
{
putc(ch,fp2);
}
fclose(fp1);
fclose(fp2);
getch();
}
Program to understand fputc( ) and fgetc( ).
#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
void main()
{
FILE *fp;
char ch;
clrscr();
fp=fopen("abc.txt","w");
printf("Enter text (Press ctrl+z to stop reading character)\n");
while((ch=getchar())!=EOF)
{
fputc(ch,fp);
}
fclose(fp);
fp=fopen("abc.txt","r");
while((ch=fgetc(fp))!=EOF)
{
printf("%c",ch);
}
fclose(fp);
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getch();
}
Output
Program to understand putc( ) and getc( ).
#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
void main()
{
FILE *fptr;
char ch;
printf("\n Enter any character: ");
scanf("%c",&ch);
fptr=fopen("abc.txt","w");
putc(ch,fptr);
fclose(fptr);
fptr=fopen("abc.txt","r");
ch=getc(fptr);
printf("\n %c",ch);
getch();
}
Output
Program to understand putw( ) and getw( )
#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
void main()
{
FILE *fp;
int value;
clrscr();
fp=fopen("abc.txt","w");
for(value=1;value<=10;value++)
{
putw(value,fp);
}
fclose(fp);
fp=fopen("abc.txt","r");
while((value=getw(fp))!=EOF)
{
printf("%d\n",value);
}
fclose(fp);
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getch();
}
Output
Program to understand fputs( ) and fgets( ).
#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
void main()
{
FILE *fptr;
char str[80];
fptr=fopen("abc.txt","w");
printf("Enter the text (Press ctrl+z to stop entering) \n");
while(gets(str)!=NULL)
fputs(str,fptr);
fclose(fptr);
fptr=fopen("abc.txt","r");
while(fgets(str,80,fptr)!=NULL)
{
puts(str);
}
fclose(fptr);
getch();
}
Output
Program to understand fprintf( ) and fscanf( )
#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
void main()
{
struct student
{
int roll;
char name[15];
};
struct student st;
FILE *fp;
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int i,n;
clrscr();
printf("How many records do you want to enter: ");
scanf("%d",&n);
fp=fopen("student.txt","w");
for(i=0;i<n;i++)
{
printf("\n Enter rollno and name of student: ");
scanf("%d%s",&st.roll,st.name);
fprintf(fp,"\n%d%s",st.roll,st.name);
}
fclose(fp);
fp=fopen("student.txt","r");
printf("\n Rollno\tName");
while(fscanf(fp,"%d%s",&st.roll,st.name)!=EOF)
{
printf("\n %d\t%s",st.roll,st.name);
}
fclose(fp);
getch();
}
Output
