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Error Handling in C
Last Updated : 07 Aug, 2023

Although C does not provide direct support to error handling (or exception
handling), there are ways through which error handling can be done in C.
A programmer has to prevent errors in the first place and test return
values from the functions.

A lot of C function calls return -1 or NULL or set an in case of an error code

as the global variable errno, so quick tests on these values are easily done
with an instance of ‘if statement’.

What is errno?
errno is a global variable indicating the error occurred during any function
call and it is defined inside <errno.h> header file.

When a function is called in C, a variable named errno is automatically

assigned a code (value) which can be used to identify the type of error that
has been encountered. Different codes (values) for errno mean different
types of errors.

Below is a list of a few different errno values and their corresponding

meaning:

errno value Error

Open In App
 1 Operation not permitted

2 No such file or directory

3 No such process

4 Interrupted system call

5 I/O error

6 No such device or address

7 The argument list is too long

8 Exec format error

9 Bad file number

10 No child processes

11 Try again

12 Out of memory

13 Permission denied

Example of errno

C Open In App
#include <errno.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
// If a file is opened which does not exist,
// then it will be an error and corresponding
// errno value will be set
FILE* fp;

// opening a file which does not exist

fp = fopen("GeeksForGeeks.txt", "r");

printf("Value of errno: %d\n", errno);

return 0;
}

Output

Value of errno: 2

Note: Here the errno is set to 2 which means “No such file or directory”. It
may give Errno 13 in online IDE, which says permission denied.

Different Methods for Error Handling in C

Different methods are used to handle different kinds of errors in C. Some
of the commonly used methods are:

1. perror()
2. strerr()
3. ferror()
4. feof()
5. clearerr()
6. Exit Status
7. Divide by Zero Error

1. perror() Open In App

The perror() function is used to show the error description. It displays the
string you pass to it, followed by a colon, a space, and then the textual
representation of the current errno value.

Syntax

void perror(const char *str);

Parameters

str: It is a string containing a custom message to be printed before the

error message itself.

Example

// C implementation to see how perror() function is used to

// print the error messages.
#include <errno.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main()
{
FILE* fp;

// If a file is opened which does not exist,

// then it will be an error and corresponding
// errno value will be set
fp = fopen(" GeeksForGeeks.txt ", "r");

// opening a file which does

// not exist.
printf("Value of errno: %d\n ", errno);
perror("Message from perror");

return 0;
}

Open In App
Output

Value of errno: 2
Message from perror: No such file or directory

2. strerror()

The strerror() function is also used to show the error description. This
function returns a pointer to the textual representation of the current errno
value.

Syntax

char *strerror(int errnum);

Parameters

errnum: It is the error number (errno).

Example

// C implementation to see how strerror() function is used

// to print the error messages.
#include <errno.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main()
{
FILE* fp;

// If a file is opened which does not exist,

// then it will be an error and corresponding
// errno value will be set
fp = fopen(" GeeksForGeeks.txt ", "r");

// opening a file which does

// not exist.
printf("Value of errno: %d\n", errno
Open In App);
 printf("The error message is : %s\n", strerror(errno));

return 0;
}

Output

Value of errno: 2
The error message is : No such file or directory

3. ferror()

The ferror() function is used to check whether an error occurred during a

file operation.

Syntax

int ferror(FILE *stream);

Parameters

stream: It is the pointer that points to the FILE for which we want to
check the error.

Return Value

It returns a non-zero value if an error occurred, otherwise it returns 0.

Example

// C program to demonstrate the ferror() function

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
// Open the file in read mode
FILE* file = fopen("nonexistent_file.txt",
Open In App "r");
 if (file == NULL) {
// Print an error message
// if file opening fails
perror("Error opening file");
// Return with non-zero exit status to
// indicate an error
return 1;
}

int c;
// Process the character
// Add your code here to perform operations on each
// character read from the file
while ((c = fgetc(file)) != EOF) {
}

if (ferror(file)) {
// Print an error message if an error occurred
// during file reading
printf(
"An error occurred while reading the file.\n");
}
else {
// Print success message if file reading completed
// without errors
printf("File read successfully.\n");
}
// Close the file
fclose(file);
// Return with zero exit status to indicate successful
// execution
return 0;
}

Output

Error opening file: No such file or directory

4. feof()

The feof() function is used to check whether end-of-file indicator is set

for a file steam. Open In App
Syntax

int feof(FILE *stream);

Parameters

stream: It is the pointer that points to the FILE for which we want to
check the error.

Return Value

It returns a non-zero value if an error occurred, otherwise, it returns 0.

Example

// C program to demonstrate the feof() function

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
FILE* fptr = fopen("filename.txt", "r");
if (fptr == NULL) {
// Print error message if file opening fails
perror("Error opening the file");
return 1;
}

// Perform file operations

if (ferror(fptr)) {
// Print error message if file operation fails
perror("Error occurred during file operations");
// Handle the error
}
// Close the file
fclose(fptr);
return 0;
}

Open In App
Output

Error opening the file: No such file or directory

5. clearerr()

The clearerr() function is used to clear both end-of-file and error

indicators for a file stream.

Syntax

void clearerr(FILE *stream);

Parameters

stream: It is the pointer that points to the FILE for which we want to
check the error.

Example

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
FILE* file = fopen("file.txt", "r");
// Open the file in read mode
if (file == NULL) {
// Print an error message
// if file opening fails
perror("Error opening file");
// Return with non-zero exit status to
// indicate an error
return 1;
}

// Perform file operations

// Add your code here to perform operations on the
// opened file

Open In App
if (ferror(file)) {
 // Print an error message
// if an error occurred
// during file operations
printf("An error occurred while performing file "
"operations.\n");
}

// Clear the error indicators for the

// file stream
clearerr(file);

// Continue with file operations

// Add your code here to continue with further
// operations on the file

// Close the file

fclose(file);
return 0;
}

6. Exit Status

Exit status is the value returned by the program after its execution is
completed which tells the status of the execution of the program.

The C standard specifies two constants: EXIT_SUCCESS and

EXIT_FAILURE, that may be passed to exit() to indicate successful or
unsuccessful termination, respectively. These are macros defined in
<stdlib.h> header file.

Example

// C implementation which shows the

// use of EXIT_SUCCESS and EXIT_FAILURE.
#include <errno.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
Open In App
int main()
{
FILE* fp;
fp = fopen("filedoesnotexist.txt", "rb");

if (fp == NULL) {
printf("Value of errno: %d\n", errno);
printf("Error opening the file: %s\n",
strerror(errno));
perror("Error printed by perror");

exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
printf("I will not be printed\n");
}

else {
fclose(fp);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
printf("I will not be printed\n");
}
return 0;
}

Output

Value of errno: 2
Error opening the file: No such file or directory
Error printed by perror: No such file or directory

7. Divide by Zero Errors

A common pitfall made by C programmers is not checking if a divisor is

zero before a division command. Division by zero leads to undefined
behavior, there is no C language construct that can do anything about it.
Your best bet is to not divide by zero in the first place, by checking the
denominator.

Example

Open In App
C

// C program to check and rectify

// divide by zero condition
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

void function(int);

int main()
{
int x = 0;
function(x);
return 0;
}

void function(int x)
{
float fx;

if (x == 0) {
printf("Division by Zero is not allowed");
fprintf(stderr, "Division by zero! Exiting...\n");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
else {
fx = 10 / x;
printf("f(x) is: %.5f", fx);
}
}

Output

Division by zero! Exiting...

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