CENG 110 – PROGRAMMING AND

COMPUTING II

Week 6 : C File Processing (Sequential

Access)

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Objectives
• Understand the concepts of files and streams.
• Write data to and read data from files using sequential-
access text-file processing.
• Write data to, update data in and read data from files
using random-access file processing and binary files.
• Develop a substantial transaction-processing program.

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Outline
11.1 Introduction

11.2 Files and Streams

11.3 Creating a Sequential-Access File

11.3.1 Pointer to a FILE
11.3.2 Using fopen to Open a File
11.3.3 Using feof to Check for the End-of-File Indicator
11.3.4 Using fprintf to Write to a File
11.3.5 Using fclose to Close a File
11.3.6 File-Open Modes

11.4 Reading Data from a Sequential-Access File

11.4.1 Resetting the File Position Pointer
11.4.2 Credit Inquiry Program

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11.1 Introduction
• Data in variables is temporary—it’s lost when a program
terminates.
• Files enable long-term data retention
• This chapter explains how to create, update and process
data files.
• We consider both sequential-access and random-access
file processing.

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11.2 Files and Streams (1 of 3)
• C views each file as a sequential stream of bytes

• Each file ends with an end-of-file marker or at a specific byte number

recorded in a system-maintained, administrative data structure
• This is platform-dependent and hidden from you.
• Standard Streams in Every Program
– The standard input stream receives input from the keyboard.
– The standard output stream displays output on the screen.
– The standard error stream displays error messages on the screen.

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11.2 Files and Streams (2 of 3)
• FILE Structure
– Opening a file returns a pointer to a FILE structure (defined in
<stdio.h>)
– May include a file descriptor—an integer index into an operating-
system array called the open file table
▪ Each element contains a file control block (FCB)—information
the operating system uses to administer a particular file.
– Manipulate the standard input, standard output and standard error
streams using the FILE pointers stdin, stdout and stderr.
• File-Processing Function fgetc
– Like getchar, but reads one character from the file specified by
its FILE pointer argument

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11.2 Files and Streams (3 of 3)
• File-Processing Function fputc
– Like putchar, but writes the character in its first argument
to the file specified by the FILE pointer in its second
argument.
• Other File-Processing Functions
– The fgets and fputs functions read a line of text from a
file and write a line of text to a file, respectively.
– The next few sections introduce the file-processing
equivalents of functions scanf and printf—fscanf
and fprintf.
– Later in the chapter, we discuss functions fread and
fwrite.
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11.3 Creating a Sequential-Access File
(1 of 8)

• C imposes no structure on a file

• Notions such as a record of a file are not part of the C
language
• The following example shows how you can impose your own
record structure on a file

11.3.1 Pointer to a FILE

• A program refers to each open file with a separate FILE
pointer
• You need not know the FILE structure’s specifics to use files

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11.3 Creating a Sequential-Access File
(2 of 8)

11.3.2 Using fopen to Open a File

• fopen opens a file and establishes a “line of communication” with it

• Two arguments
– a filename (which can include path information leading to the
file’s location)
– a file open mode
• File open mode "w" indicates fopen should open the file for writing
– If the file does not exist, fopen creates the file
– If you open an existing file, fopen discards the file’s contents
without warning
• If the file pointer fopen returns is NULL, the file could not be opened

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11.3 Creating a Sequential-Access File
(3 of 8)

11.3.3 Using feof to Check for the End-of-File Indicator

• The key combinations for end-of-file are platform-dependent:
– Windows: <Ctrl> + z, then press Enter
– macOS/Linux: <Ctrl> + d
• feof determines whether the end-of-file indicator is set
– End-of-file indicator informs the program that there’s no
more data to process
– The argument is a FILE pointer to the file to test
• Returns a nonzero (true) value when the end-of-file indicator
has been set; otherwise, the function returns zero (false).

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11.3 Creating a Sequential-Access
File (4 of 8)
11.3.4 Using fprintf to Write to a File
• Equivalent to printf, but fprintf also receives a FILE
pointer argument specifying the file to which the data will be
written
11.3.5 Using fclose to Close a File
• Function fclose receives the FILE pointer as an argument
• If you do not call fclose explicitly, the operating system
normally will close the file when program execution terminates
• Close each file as soon as it’s no longer needed

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11.3 Creating a Sequential-Access
File (5 of 8)

11.3.6 File-Open Modes

Mode Description
r Open an existing file for reading.
w Create a file for writing. If the file already exists, discard the current
contents.
a Open or create a file for writing at the end of a file—this is for write
operations that append data to a file.
r+ Open an existing file for update (reading and writing).
w+ Create a file for reading and writing. If the file already exists, discard the
current contents.
a+ Open or create a file for reading and updating where all writing is done
at the end of the file—that is, write operations append data to the file.

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11.3 Creating a Sequential-Access
File (6 of 8)
11.3.6 File-Open Modes
• The ones containing the letter "b" are for manipulating binary files

Mode Description
rb Open an existing binary file for reading.
wb Create a binary file for writing. If the file already exists, discard the
current contents.
ab Open or create a binary file for writing at the end of the file
(appending).
rb+ Open an existing binary file for update (reading and writing).
wb+ Create a binary file for update. If the file already exists, discard the
current contents.
ab+ Open or create a binary file for update. Writing is done at the end of
the file.
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11.3 Creating a Sequential-Access
File (7 of 8)

11.3.6 File-Open Modes

• C11 Exclusive Write Mode
– Indicated with "wx", "w+x", "wbx" or "wb+x".
– fopen fails if the file already exists or cannot be
created
– If your program successfully opens a file in exclusive
write mode and the underlying system supports
exclusive file access, then only your program can
access the file while it’s open

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11.3 Creating a Sequential-Access
File (8 of 8)

• Common File-Processing Errors

– Opening a nonexistent file for reading.
– Opening a file for reading or writing without having
been granted the appropriate access rights to the file
(this is operating-system dependent).
– Opening a file for writing when no space is available.
– Opening a file in write mode ("w") when it should be
opened in update mode ("r+")—"w" discards the file’s
contents.

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11.4 Reading Data from a Sequential-
Access File
• Data is stored in files so that it can be retrieved for processing
when needed.
• If a file’s contents should not be modified, open the file only for
reading.
– Prevents unintentional modification of the file’s contents
and is another example of the principle of least privilege.
• Open a file for reading with the "r" mode.
• Function fscanf is equivalent to scanf but receives as its
first argument a FILE pointer for the file from which to read.

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11.4.1 Resetting the File Position Pointer
• When retrieving data sequentially from a file, a program normally
reads from the beginning of the file until the desired data is found
• In some cases, a program must process a file sequentially several
times from the beginning
• rewind(cfPtr);
– Repositions the file position pointer to the beginning (byte 0) of
the file pointed to by cfPtr
– The file position pointer is not really a pointer
– It’s an integer indicating the byte number of the next byte to read
or write.
– Sometimes referred to as the file offset

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11.4.2 Credit Inquiry Program
• You cannot modify data in this type of sequential file without the risk of
destroying other data

• For example, if the name "White" needs to be changed to "Worthington", you

cannot simply overwrite the old name

• The new record has more characters than the original record

• The characters beyond the second "o" in "Worthington" will overwrite the
beginning of the next sequential record in the file
• In the formatted input/output model using fprintf and fscanf, fields
and records can vary in size

– 7, 14, – 117, 2074 and 27383 are all ints stored internally in
the same number of bytes, but they’re different sizes when displayed
or written to a file as text

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