Lecture 6: Input/Output

1 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
Overview
 Programmers usually need to work with input, output
devices like screen, keyboard, files, printer,…
 For each program, there are:
 A standard output stdout: console by default, can be
considered as a virtual write-only file, and can be
redefined as a file on disk, or printer,…
 A standard error output stderr: like stdout but usually used
to export error or warning messages when program
encounters
 A standard input stdin: keyboard by default, can be
considered as a virtual read-only file, and can be
redefined as a file on disk

2 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
Start off
 Write to stdout
 Write a character:
int putchar(int c);
 Write a string and append a newline character ('\n'):
int puts(const char* s);
 Write formatted data:
int printf(const char* format, ...);
 Read from stdin
 Read a character:
int getchar();
 Read characters as a string until a newline character:
char* gets(char* s);
 Read formatted data:
int scanf(const char* format, ...);

3 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
Input/output with files
 File type:
 typedef struct { … } FILE;
 Steps to manipulate with files: Open/create file  Read/write data  Close
 FILE structure has a field that store currently read/write position of that file,
which is called file pointer
 Open files:
 FILE* fopen(const char* fname, const char* mode);
mode Description mode Description
"r" Permit only read access "r+" Permit read and write access
"w" Permit only write, erase old file "w+" Permit read and write, erase
content or create a new file if old file content or create a new
not existing file if not existing
"a" Permit only write, set the file "a+" Permit read and write, set the
pointer to the end of file, or file pointer to the end of file, or
create a new file if not existing create a new file if not existing
"t" Text file read/write mode "b" Binary file read/write mode
4 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018
Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
Remarks on opening files
 NULL returned when opening fails  need to check
return value of fopen() to see if opening
succeeded
 Failure causes:
 Open an non-existing file
 Permission denied
 File in used by another program with re-open restriction
 Too many files being opened (OS has limit on number of
concurrent opened files)
 Files opened by fopen() can be re-opened by
another programs

5 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
Open files with re-open restriction
 A program might desire to restrict other programs from
intervention to its opened files  use _fsopen()
 FILE* _fsopen(const char* fname, const char*
mode, int shflag);
 shflag: restriction flag (or share flag)
 #include <share.h>

shflag value Definition

_SH_DENYNO Permit read and write access
_SH_DENYRD Deny read access to the file
_SH_DENYWR Deny write access to the file
_SH_DENYRW Deny read and write access to the file

 Attn: Only available in MS Visual C

6 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
Writing to files
 Text and binary files
 Text files: operations including processing some special characters
(new line, space, tab,…)  suitable for human readable text
 Binary files: no special characters processing  suitable for
binary structured data
 Write textual data:
 int fputc(int c, FILE* file);
 int fputs(const char* s, FILE* file);
 int fprintf(FILE* file, const char* format, ...);
 Similar to putchar(), puts(), printf()
 Write binary data:
 int fwrite(const void* buf, int size, int count, FILE*
file);
 Write an array of count elements where each one are size-byte length

7 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
Read from files
 Read textual data:
 int fgetc(FILE* file);
 int fgets(char* s, int n, FILE* file);
 int fscanf(FILE* file, const char* format, ...);
 Similar to getchar(), gets(), scanf(), except returning EOF when
reaching end of file
 Read binary data:
 int fread(void* buf, int size, int count, FILE* file);
 Read an array of count elements where each one are size-byte length
 Test for end-of-file condition:
 int feof(FILE* file);
 As file reading/writing uses buffer, use fflush() to send/clear all
pending data to device, when needing to synchronize reading and
writing states
 int fflush(FILE* file);
8 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018
Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
Other file read/write functions
 Close file:
 int fclose(FILE* file);
 Move file pointer:
 void rewind(FILE* file);
 int fseek(FILE* file, long offs, int org);
org = SEEK_CUR: reference position is current position
org = SEEK_END: reference position is end of file
org = SEEK_SET: reference position is beginning of file
 Query current position:
 long ftell(FILE* file);
 Delete file:
 int remove(const char* path);
 Rename and move file:
 int rename(const char* old, const char* new);

9 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
Example: copy file
int copy_file(const char* src, const char* dst) {
FILE *fs = NULL, *fd = NULL;
char buf[1024];
int num;

if ((fs = fopen(src,"rb")) == NULL) return -1;

if ((fd = fopen(dst,"wb")) == NULL) { fclose(fs); return -1; }

while(!feof(fs)) {
num = fread(buf, 1, sizeof(buf), fs);
fwrite(buf, 1, num, fd);
}

fclose(fs); fclose(fd);
return 0;
}
10 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018
Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
stdin, stdout, stderr
 Standard input/output are actually predefined FILE*  printf(…),
scanf(…) functions are equivalent to fprintf(stdout,…) and
fscanf(stdin,…)
 Similarly, putchar(), puts(), getchar(), gets() functions also
manipulate stdin and stdout
 Redirection of standard input/outputs:
Command Description
command > file Redirect stdout to file, create new file or erase old file if existing
command 1> file
command 2> file Redirect stderr to file, create new file or erase old file if existing
command >> file Redirect stdout to file, append to end of file
command 1>> file
command 2>> file Redirect stderr to file, append to end of file
command < file Redirect stdin to file
command1 | command2 Redirect stdout of command1 to stdin of command2

11 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
stdin, stdout, stderr (cont.)
 Some special files
File name Description File name Description
&0 stdin nul Discard all data
&1 stdout prn, lpt1-9 Printer
&2 stderr con Console
aux AUX port com1-9 COM ports

 Ex:
 Redirect both stdout and stderr to result.txt file
C:\>dir *.dat >result.txt 2>&1
 Redirect stdout to printer and stderr to error.log file
C:\>stuff >prn 2>error.log
 Redirect stdin to input.txt file and stdout to output.txt file
C:\>process <input.txt >output.txt
 Create pipe (output of one command is input of the other)
C:\>type source.c | more
12 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018
Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
Read/write on memory buffer
 Write:
 sprintf(char* buffer, const char* format,
...);
 Read:
 sscanf(const char* buffer, const char*
format, ...);
 Usage similar to fprintf() and fscanf() but data are
stored in memory specified by buffer parameter
 Ex:
 char s[50];
sprintf(s, "sin(pi/3) = %.3f", sin(3.14/3));
 Result: value of s will be "sin(pi/3) = 0.866"

13 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
 Safe input/output

14 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
Buffer overflow error
 Happens when program write more data than the size of
buffer
 Ex: copy a string of 10 characters into a buffer of 5 bytes
char s[5];
strcpy(s, "0123456789"); /* error */
 This error is dangerous as it will cause unpredictable
effects, especially may help user to take ownership of
computer then do anything  need to control the length
of input data to fit into memory allocated to variables
 Standard C functions do not check buffer overflow error
 use extend functions in Visual C from 2005

15 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
String and memory processing functions
 memcpy_s(void* dest, int size, const void* src, int
count);
 memmove_s(void* dest, int size, const void* src,
int count);

 strcpy_s(char* dest, int size, const char* src);

 strcat_s(char* dest, int size, const char* src);
 _strlwr_s(char* str, int size);
 _strupr_s(char* str, int size);

16 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
Data reading functions
 gets_s(char* str, int size);

 scanf_s(const char* format, ...);

 Added buffer-size checking parameters
 int i;
float f;
char c;
char s[10];
scanf_s("%d %f %c %s", &i, &f, &c, 1, s, 10);
 Similar to fscanf_s(), sscanf_s() functions

17 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology
Problems
Write programs to:
1. Convert all characters in a file to upper case
2. Count number of words and number of lines in a file
(words separated by space, tab, newline characters)
3. Append a file to another
4. Print the 10th line of a file
5. Insert a line into a file after the 10th line
6. Input data for struct Student from keyboard, then try to
redirect stdin and stdout to files and see the effects
7. Write a function that returns the size of a file given from
parameter

18 EE3490E: Programming – S1 2017/2018

Dr. Đào Trung Kiên – Hanoi Univ. of Science and Technology