Introduction to pointers and
File Input and Output
Strings
■ string is a character array whose last character is
‘\0’
■ string is not a data type in C
■ and hence comparing two strings, or assigning a
string has to done explicitly through functions
❑ Eg: char str[ ] = “hello”;
char name[ ] = “world”;
if (name == str) /* this compares just starting addresses*/
{
…;
}
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Strings
■ Most common functions for strings are defined
in a standard library with header file string.h
■ For example:
❑ int strlen(char s[ ])
{
int j = 0;
while(s[j] != ‘\0’) ++j;
return j;
}
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Addresses and Pointers ( a brief)
■ int j = 5;
■ The unary operator & gives the address of its
operand.
■ Hence, &j is the address of j
■ & cannot be applied to expressions, constants, or
register variables.
■ Let &j be 1000.
■ Even by knowing this 1000, if you do not know that
the value at the address is an integer, you can not
retrieve 5.
■ So, along with address, we need the type of the
value located at the address.
Pointers
■ Pointer is a variable that contains the address of a
variable.
■ int *p; /*declaration of a pointer*/
■ p is an integer pointer.
■ That is, value of p is an address. And at that address an
integer is stored.
■ The unary operator * is the indirection or dereferencing
operator; when applied to a pointer, it accesses the
object that is pointed by the pointer.
Pointers, an example
❑ int x = 1, y = 2;
int *ip; /* ip is a pointer to int */
ip = &x; /* ip now points to x */
y = *ip; /* y is now 1 */
*ip = 0; /* x is now 0 */
x Name
ip
1000 1 Value
1024 1000 Address
Pointers
❑ void swap (int *, int *);
main( )
■Thisis the correct
{
int j = 10, k = 20; way of writing a swap
swap(&j, &k); function.
printf(“%d %d”, j, k);
}
void swap(int *a, int *b)
{
int t;
t = *a, *a = *b, *b = t;
}
Pointers and Arrays
■ Any operation that can be achieved by array
subscripting can also be done with pointers.
■ int a[10] = {1,2,3,4,5};
int *ip;
ip = a;
ip[0] = 10; /* is same as a[0] = 10 */
*(ip + 5) = 20; /* same as ip[5] = 20 */
▪ When you say, ip + 5 it is indeed ip +5*sizeof(int)
This is called pointer (address) arithmetic.
Files
When dealing with files, there are two types of files you should know about:
1. Text files
2. Binary files
In C, you can perform four major operations on
files, either text or binary:
1. Creating a new file
2. Opening an existing file
3. Closing a file
4. Reading from and writing information to a file
Opening a file - for creation and edit
FILE *fptr;
ptr = fopen("fileopen","mode");
fopen("E:\\cprogram\\newprogram.txt","w");
mode can be w, a, r,
int fputc(int char, FILE *pointer)
int main()
{
int i = 0;
FILE *fp = fopen("output.txt","w");
if (fp == NULL)
return 0;
char string[] = "good bye", received_string[20];
for (i = 0; string[i]!='\0'; i++)
fputc(string[i], fp);
fclose(fp);
fp = fopen("output.txt","r");
fgets(received_string,20,fp);
printf("%s", received_string);
fclose(fp);
return 0;
}
The fprintf( ) function is used to write set of
characters into file.
int fprintf(FILE *stream, const char *format [, argument, ...])
#include <stdio.h>
main()
FILE *fp;
fp = fopen("file.txt", "w"); //opening file
fprintf(fp, "Hello file by fprintf...\n"); //writing data into file
fclose(fp); //closing file
}
The fscanf( ) function is used to read set of characters from file.
It reads a word from the file and returns EOF at the end of file.
int fscanf(FILE *stream, const char *format [, argument, ...])
1. #include <stdio.h>
2. main(){
3. FILE *fp;
4. char buff[255];//creating char array to store data of file
5. fp = fopen("file.txt", "r");
6. while(fscanf(fp, "%s", buff)!=EOF){
7. printf("%s ", buff );
8. }
9. fclose(fp);
10. }
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
int num;
FILE *fptr;
fptr = fopen("C:\\program.txt","w");
if(fptr == NULL)
{
printf("Error!");
exit(1);
}
printf("Enter num: ");
scanf("%d",&num);
fprintf(fptr,"%d",num);
fclose(fptr);
return 0;
}
1. fgetc()– This function is used to read a single character from the file.
2. fgets()– This function is used to read strings from files.
3. fscanf()– This function is used to read formatted input from a file.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
// Driver code
int main()
{
FILE* ptr;
char ch;
ptr = fopen("test.txt", "r");
if (NULL == ptr) {
printf("file can't be opened \n");
}
do {
ch = fgetc(ptr);
printf("%c", ch);
} while (ch != EOF);
fclose(ptr);
return 0;
}
{
FILE *fptr;
// Open a file in read mode
fptr = fopen("filename.txt", "r");
// Store the content of the file
char myString[100];
// Read the content and store it inside myString
fgets(myString, 100, fptr);
// Print the file content
printf("%s", myString);
// Close the file
fclose(fptr);
}
