Unit-5

File:
A File represents a sequence of bytes on the disk where a group of related data is stored.
Files allow us to store our data in a permanent form.
 Simply a File is organized collection of data. It represents data that is arranged in a specific
format.
 Files are stored in secondary memory such as hard disk, CD or DVD.
 Every file has a name. Every operating system uses a set of rules for naming its files.
 C supports many operations on files as given below:
 Creating a file / Opening a file
 Reading data from a file
 Writing data to a file
 Closing a file
Types of files:
Depending upon the format in which data is stored, files are primarily categorized into two types:
1. Text File 2. Binary File
1. Text Files:
 A Text file stores textual information like alphabets, numbers, special symbols etc., These
text files have the extension “.txt” in their names.
Eg: student.txt, emp.txt etc.,
 The C language supports various operations on text files such as creating a new text file,
opening a text file, reading data from a text file, writing data to a text file and closing a
text file.
2. Binary Files:
 A Binary file stores the information in binary form. (0s and 1s). We need not convert the
binary files whereas text files need conversion from text to binary form.
 Any file which stores data in the form of bytes is known as binary file.
 Every executable file generated by C compiler is a binary file. ( .exe )
 C supports various operations on binary files such as reading data from a binary file,
writing data to a binary file, appending data to a binary files etc.,

Creating Files:
 The C programming language provides many standard library functions for file input & output.
These functions are available in the header file <stdio.h>.
 For C file I/O, you need to create a FILE pointer, which lets the program keep track of the file
being accessed.
 A FILE pointer is a pointer to a structure that contains several pieces of information about the
file.
 We can create a FILE pointer as follows:

FILE *fp;
Opening Files:
 We can open a file for different purposes. The purpose of opening a file should be given to the
program through the use of modes.
 The following are the modes that we can use to open files:

File Opening Modes

r – open file for reading only

w – open file for writing only

a – open file for appending data to it at the end of the file.

+ - Add symbol to allow read/write access

b – Open in binary mode

 To open a file, we have to use ‘fopen()’ function by providing the file name and the mode as
parameters.
 Syntax: fopen(filename, mode);

 The fopen() function returns a FILE pointer that contains information about the file being
opened.
Example:
FILE *fp1, *fp2;
fp1=fopen(“data.txt”, “r”);
fp2=fopen(“content.txt”, “w”);

Files Page 1
 Unit-5

Closing Files:
 A file must be closed soon after all the operations on it have been completed.
 When a file is closed, all the information outstanding associated with the file is flushed out from
buffers and all links to the file are broken.
 To close a file, we have to use the fclose() function
 Syntax:
fclose(FILE* fp);

 It returns 0 on success and returns EOF if any errors are detected.

Input / Output Operations on files:

 The input operation on a file means to read the contents of it. The output operation on a file
means to write the data to it.
 The following is the list of functions used to perform read and write operations on files.

I/O Description Prototype Example

function
getc() Reads a single character getc(FILE *fp) ch=getc(fp)
from a file
putc() Writes a single character to a putc(int char, FILE *fp) putc(ch)
file or on standard Output
gets() Reads a group of character gets(FILE *fp) gets(ch)
from a file
puts() Writes a group of character to puts(int char, FILE *fp) puts(ch,fp)
a file or on standard Output
getw() Reads an integer from a file getw(FILE *fp); ch=getw(fp)

putw() Writing an integer to a file putw(int number, FILE *fp); putw(ch,fp)

fputc() Write a single character into fputc(int char, FILE *fp; fputc(ch,fp)
file.
fgetc() Returns a single character fgetc(FILE *fp) ch=fgetc(fp)
from the file.
fputs() Writes a line of characters fputs(char *string, FILE *fp) fputs(ch,fp)
into file
fgets() Reads a line of characters fgets(char *string, int n, FILE fgets(ch,80,fp)
from file. *fp)
fprintf() Writing a block of data to a fprintf(FILE *fp, const char fprintf(fp,%s,ch)
file *format, variables)
fscanf() Reading a block data from a fscanf(FILE *fp, const char fscanf(fp,%s,ch)
file *format, variables)

Formatted input / output:

 The formatted input / output functions can handle a group of data simultaneously. Most C
compilers support two formatted I/O functions ‘fprintf()’ and ‘fscanf()’.
 The functions ‘fprintf()’ and ‘fscanf()’ are similar to ‘printf()’ and ‘scanf()’
functions except they work for files also.
 These functions take a FILE pointer as the first argument. This FILE pointer specifies the file to
be used.
 These two functions are defined in ‘stdio.h’ header file.

 The fprintf() function:

 The general form of the ‘fprintf()’ function is as follows:
int fprintf(FILE *fp, const char* controlString, list );


Here ‘fp’ is the FILE pointer associated with a file that has been opened for reading or
writing.
 The ‘controlString’ contains format specifiers and the list may include variables,
constants, strings etc.,
 It uses same format specifiers as printf() but it sends output to the specified stream
‘fp’.
 The fprintf() returns the number of bytes output. It returns ‘EOF’ on error.
Eg: fprintf(fp, “%s \t %d \t %f”, “Raju”, 20, 8.2);

Files Page 2
 Unit-5

 The fscanf() function:

 The general form of the ‘fscanf()’ function is as follows:
int fscanf(FILE *fp, const char* controlString, list );

 Here ‘fp’ is the FILE pointer associated with a file that has been opened for reading or
writing.
 The ‘controlString’ contains format specifiers and the list may include variables,
constants, strings etc.,
 It uses same format specifiers as scanf() but it reads input from the specified stream
‘fp’.
 The fscanf() returns the number of input fields that are successfully scanned, converted
& stored. It returns ‘EOF’ on error.
Eg: fscanf(fp, “%s %d %f”, &name, &age, &points);
Random access to files:
Random accessing of files can also be possible in C with the help of the following functions:
i) fseek()
ii) ftell()
iii) rewind()
i) fseek():
 This function is used to move the file position to a desired location within the file.
 The prototype of this function is defined in ‘stdio.h’ header file. The general form of
fseek() function is given below:
int fseek(FILE *fp, long offset, int position);

 Here ‘fp’ is the FILE pointer associated with a file that has been opened for reading or
writing.
 The ‘offset’ is a number or variable of type ‘long’. It specifies the number of bytes to
be moved from the location specified by ‘position’.
 The ‘position’ is used to set the seek starting position. It takes one of the following
values:
S.NO VALUE MEANING

Seeks from the beginning

1 SEEK_SET (0)
of the file
Seeks from the current
2 SEEK_CUR (1)
position
Seeks from the end of the
3 SEEK_END (2)
file
Eg: fseek(fp, m, SEEK_CUR); (or) fseek(fp, m, 1);
The above statement indicates moving forward ‘m’ bytes from the current position.
Eg: fseek(fp, -m, SEEK_END); (or) fseek(fp, m, 2);
The above statement means moving backward by ‘m’ bytes from the end of the file.
ii) ftell():
 The ‘ftell()’ function takes a file pointer and return a ‘long’ value that indicates the
current file pointer position. It returns -1 on error.
 This function is useful in saving the current position of a file.
 The prototype of this function is defined in ‘stdio.h’ header file. The general form of
ftell() function is given below:
long ftell(FILE *fp);

 Here ‘fp’ is the FILE pointer associated with a file that has been opened for reading or
writing.

Eg: n=ftell(fp);
Here ‘n’ is a variable of type ‘long’.
iii) rewind():
 The ‘rewind()’ function takes a file pointer and repositions the file pointer to the
beginning of the file.
 The prototype of this function is defined in ‘stdio.h’ header file. The general form of
rewind() function is given below:
 Here ‘fp’ is the FILE pointer associated with a file that has been opened for reading or
writing.
void rewind(FILE *fp);

Eg: rewind(fp);
n=ftell(fp); /* n contains 0 */

Files Page 3
 Unit-5

Error handling during I/O operations:

 If an error occurs in our program, the program may behave abnormally. If we check such errors,
we can take corrective measures.
 We have two status inquiry functions to detect I/O errors in the files. They are:
i) feof()
ii) ferror()
i) feof():
 The ‘feof()’ function can be used to test for an end of file condition.
 The ‘feof()’ function takes a FILE pointer as argument and it returns a non zero
integer if the file reaches end-of-file condition otherwise it returns zero.
 The prototype of this function is defined in ‘stdio.h’ header file. The general form of
feof() function is given below:

. int feof(FILE *fp);

Eg: if(feof(fp)){
printf(“\n End of data”);
}
ii) ferror ():
 The ‘ferror()’ function reports the status of the file indicated.
 The ‘ferror()’ function takes a FILE pointer as argument and it returns a non zero
integer if an error has been detected up to that point. It returns zero otherwise.
 The prototype of this function is defined in ‘stdio.h’ header file. The general form of
ferror() function is given below:
int ferror(FILE *fp);

Eg: if(ferror(fp)!=0){
printf(“\n An error has been occured”);

Examples:
1. Write a Program to creates a file & reads data and store it into the file
#include<stdio.h>
main(){
FILE *fp;
char c;
fp=fopen("file1.txt", "w");
printf("File created successfully!");
printf("\n Enter data: \n");
while((c=getchar())!=EOF)
{
putc(c, fp);
}
fclose(fp);
}
Output:

2. Write a C program to open a file and displays the content of a file.

#include<stdio.h>
main(){
FILE *fp;
char c;
fp=fopen("file1.txt", "r");
if(fp==NULL)
printf("\n Cannot open the file");
else{
printf("\n The contents of the file are: \n");
while((c=getc(fp))!=EOF){
printf("%c", c);
}
fclose(fp);
}
}
Output

Files Page 4
 Unit-5
3. Write a C Program to copy content of one file to another file.
#include<stdio.h>
main()
{
FILE *fp1, *fp2;
char file1[10], file2[10];
int ch;
printf("\n Enter source file name: ");
gets(file1);
printf("\n Enter target file name: ");
gets(file2);
fp1 = fopen(file1, "r");
if(fp1==NULL)
{
printf("\n File %s cannot be opened", file1);
}
else
{
fp2 = fopen(file2, "w");
printf("\n Copying started form %s to %s.....\n", file1, file2);
while((ch=getc(fp1))!=EOF)
{
putc(ch, fp2);
}
fclose(fp1);
fclose(fp2);
printf("\n Copying completed");
}
printf("\n After copying .....\n");
printf("\n Contents of the file %s :\n", file2);
fp2=fopen(file2, "r");
while((ch=getc(fp2))!=EOF)
printf("%c", ch);
fclose(fp2);
}
Output

4. Write a C Program to merge two files and store content in another file.
main()
{
FILE *fp1,*fp2,*fp3;
char c,f1[20],f2[20],f3[20];
printf("\nEnter first file name\n");
gets(f1);
printf("\nEnter second file name\n");
gets(f2);
printf("\nEnter destination file name\n");
gets(f3);
fp1=fopen(f1, "w");
if(fp1==NULL)
{
printf("\n Cannot create file");
}
else
{
printf("\n\nFile created successfully with filename %s ",f1);
printf("\n\nEnter data: \n");
while((c=getchar())!=EOF)
{
putc(c, fp1);
}
fclose(fp1);
}
fp2=fopen(f2, "w");
if(fp2==NULL)
{

Files Page 5
 Unit-5
printf("\n Cannot create file");
}
else
{
printf("\n\nFile created successfully with filename %s ",f2);
printf("\n\nEnter data: \n");
while((c=getchar())!=EOF)
{
putc(c, fp2);
}
fclose(fp2);
}
fp1=fopen(f1, "r");
fp2=fopen(f2, "r");
fp3=fopen(f3, "w");
if(fp3==NULL)
{
printf("\n Cannot create file");
}
else
{
while((c=fgetc(fp1))!=EOF)
{
fputc(c, fp3);
}
while((c=fgetc(fp2))!=EOF)
{
fputc(c, fp3);
}
printf("\n\nFiles Merged completed\n\n");
fclose(fp3);
}
fp3=fopen(f3,"r");
printf("\n\nAfter Files Merging %s content :\n\n",f3);
while((c=getc(fp3))!=EOF)
{
printf("%c", c);
}
fclose(fp1);
fclose(fp2);
fclose(fp3);
}

Output

5. Write a C program to reverse the contents in a file.

#include<stdio.h>
int main()
{
FILE *fp;
char ch;
int i=0,pos;
fp=fopen("file1.txt","r");
if(fp==NULL)
{
printf("File does not exist..");

Files Page 6
 Unit-5

}
fseek(fp,0,SEEK_END);
pos=ftell(fp);
while(i<pos)
{
i++;
fseek(fp,-i,SEEK_END);
printf("%c",fgetc(fp));
}
return 0;
}
Output:

Original file file1.txt:

6. Write a C program to count number of characters, words and lines in a file

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
FILE * fp;
char ch;
int ccount=0, wcount=0, lcount=0;
fp = fopen("file2.txt", "r");
if(fp==NULL)
{
printf("File does not exist..");
}
while((ch = getc(fp))!= EOF)
{
ccount=ccount+1;

if (ch == '\n'||ch=='\0')
{
lcount=lcount+1;;
}

if (ch == ' '||ch=='\n')

{
wcount=wcount+1;
}
}
printf("\n");
if(ccount>0)
{
wcount++;
lcount++;

Files Page 7
 Unit-5

}
printf("Total characters = %d\n", ccount);
printf("Total words = %d\n", wcount);
printf("Total lines = %d\n", lcount);
fclose(fp);
}
Output:

Files Page 8