File Handling
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi
mayank.cse@iitbhu.ac.in
Week-13
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar (IIT(BHU) Varanasi) Subject: C Programming Week-13 1 / 13
Introduction
Until now we used console for:
Taking user input
Showing output
Real life problems involves large volume of data
Unable to load everything in memory
Loss of data in case of power cut or memory error
Use of files to handle such problems
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar (IIT(BHU) Varanasi) Subject: C Programming Week-13 2 / 13
File Handling
We will study basic operations:
Naming a file
Opening a file
Reading data from a file
Writing data to a file
Closing a file
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar (IIT(BHU) Varanasi) Subject: C Programming Week-13 3 / 13
Defining and Opening a File
Data Structure: FILE
Uses file pointer
Declaration and opening:
FILE *fp;
fp = fopen("filename", "mode");
Figure: Defining and opening a file
filename: path of the file including its name
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar (IIT(BHU) Varanasi) Subject: C Programming Week-13 4 / 13
Modes of Operation
Mode Meaning
r read only
w write only
a append
r+ Existing file opened for reading and writing
w+ Same as w except both for reading and writing
r+ Same as a except both for reading and writing
Table: Modes of operation
Any number of files can be opened at a time
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar (IIT(BHU) Varanasi) Subject: C Programming Week-13 5 / 13
Closing a File
File must be closed at the end of program
This is important because:
Ensures buffer flush
Break all memory links with the file
Memory leakage
Unwanted behavior of program
Format: fclose(file-pointer);
Need to close all file pointers used in program
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar (IIT(BHU) Varanasi) Subject: C Programming Week-13 6 / 13
IO Operations in File
Function Example Meaning
getc c = getc(fp); Read a character from a file
putc putc(c, fp); Write a character to a file
getw i = getw(fp) Read an integer from a file
putw putw(i, fp) Write an integer to a file
fscanf fscanf(fp, “control string”, arg1 , arg2 ... argn ) same as scanf but for a file
fprintf fprintf(fp, “control string”, arg1 , arg2 ... argn ); same as printf but for a file
Table: Modes of operation
End of File
Similar to End of String
Keyword: EOF
Usually used to check anything till end of file
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar (IIT(BHU) Varanasi) Subject: C Programming Week-13 7 / 13
Exercise
Read a given file and find the number of vowels and consonants in
that file. Save this information in another file in the following format:
Vowels: Count of vowels
Consonants: Count of consonants
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar (IIT(BHU) Varanasi) Subject: C Programming Week-13 8 / 13
Error Handling During I/O Operations
Some possible situations:
Reading beyond EOF
Device memory overflow
File not available or not found
File busy or used by other program
Writing in a write protected file
Such unchecked error results in:
Premature termination of program
Abnormal behavior of program resulting wrong outputs
Handling errors:
feof
ferror
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar (IIT(BHU) Varanasi) Subject: C Programming Week-13 9 / 13
Error Handling During I/O Operations
feof: test for end of file condition
if(feof(fp))
printf("End of data \n");
Figure: Example for feof
ferror: returns 0 for normal else integers for errors
if(ferror(fp) != 0)
printf("Error occured \n");
Figure: Example for ferror
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar (IIT(BHU) Varanasi) Subject: C Programming Week-13 10 / 13
Random Access to a File
This can be done using following three functions:
ftell:
n = ftell(fp);
where ‘n’ is the relative offset in bytes
rewind:
rewind(fp);
resets the position of file pointer to start
fseek:
fseek(fp, offset, position)
offset is the number of bytes to be moved with respect to position
position: 0 for start, 1 for current and 2 for end of file
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar (IIT(BHU) Varanasi) Subject: C Programming Week-13 11 / 13
Exercise
Write a program which take following three input from user:
w1 : A word to be replaced in a file
w2 : A word which replace w1 in a file
n: Number of times replacement to be done
Any negative number means replace all
If n > Existing words then report the number of replacements made
Do not report otherwise
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar (IIT(BHU) Varanasi) Subject: C Programming Week-13 12 / 13
End of Lecture
Dr. Mayank Swarnkar (IIT(BHU) Varanasi) Subject: C Programming Week-13 13 / 13
