The document discusses various file handling functions in C like fseek(), ftell(), rewind(), fgets(), fputs(), fflush(), rename(), remove(), freopen(), ferror(), fgetpos(), fsetpos() and command line arguments. Some key functions covered are: - fseek() moves the file position indicator within a file. - ftell() returns the current file position indicator. - rewind() resets the file position indicator to the beginning of the file. - fgets() and fputs() reads/writes strings to a file stream. - rename() changes the name of a file. remove() deletes a file. - freopen() redirects file streams like

1. RANDOM ACCESS TO FILES
• So far we have seen file functions that are useful for
read and write data sequentially.
• However, sometime we require to access only a
particular part of a file.
• This can be achieved using fseek , ftell and rewind
function available in I/O library.
1

2. ftell
• ftell takes a file pointer fp and return a number of type
long, that corresponds to the current position.
Example: n = ftell(fp);
• n would give the relative offset (in bytes) of the current
position. This means that n bytes have already been read
(or written).
2

3. fseek
• fseek function is used to move the file position to a desired location
within the file. It takes the following form:
fseek(file_ptr, offset, position);
• file_ptr is a pointer to the file concerned.
• offset is a number or variable of type long
• position is an integer number
• The offset specifies the number of positions (bytes) to be moved
from the location specified by position.
• The position can take one of the following three values:
Value Meaning
0 Beginning of file
1 Current position
2 End of file
3

4. • When the operation is successful, fseek returns a
zero.
• If we attempt to move the file pointer beyond the
file boundaries, an error occurs and fseek returns -1
(minus one).
4

5. rewind
• Rewind takes a file pointer and resets the position to the
start of the file.
rewind(fp);
n = ftell(fp);
• Above two line code would assign 0 to n because the file
position has been set to the start of the file by rewind.
5

6. • Remember, the first byte in the file is numbered
as 0, second as 1, and so on.
• Remember that whenever a file is opened for
reading or writing, a rewind is done implicitly.
6

7. Statement Meaning
fseek(fp,0L,0) Go to the beginning.(Similar to rewind).
fseek(fp,0L,1) Stay at the current position(Rarely used).
fseek(fp,0L,2) Go to the end of the file, past the last character of
the file.
fseek(fp,m,0) Move to (m+1)th byte in the file
fseek(fp,m,1) Go forward by m bytes
fseek(fp,-m,1) Go backward by m bytes from the current position.
fseek(fp,-m,2) Go backward by m bytes from the end.(Position
the file to the mth character from the end.)
7

8. Write a program that uses the functions ftell and fseek.
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
{ FILE *fp;
long n;
char c;
fp = fopen("RANDOM", "w");
while((c = getchar()) != EOF)
putc(c,fp);
printf("No. of characters entered = %ldn", ftell(fp));
fclose(fp);
fp = fopen("RANDOM","r");
8
n = 0L;

9. while(feof(fp) == 0)
{
fseek(fp, n, 0); /* Position to (n+1)th character */
printf("Position of %c is %ldn", getc(fp),ftell(fp));
n = n+5L;
}
putchar('n');
fseek(fp,-1L,2); /* Position to the last character */
do
{
putchar(getc(fp));
}
while(!fseek(fp,-2L,1));
fclose(fp);
}
9

10. Output:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ^Z
No. of characters entered = 26
Position of A is 0
Position of F is 5
Position of K is 10
Position of P is 15
Position of U is 20
Position of Z is 25
Position of is 30
ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
10

11. fgets
• Reads count - 1 characters from the given file stream and
stores them in str.
• Characters are read until either a newline or an EOF is
received or until the specified limit is reached.
• Declaration:
char *fgets( char *str, int count, FILE *stream );
• Returns str on success or a NULL pointer on failure.
11

12. • Example of fgets:
#include <stdio.h> sample.txt
#include <stdlib.h> This is first line.
This is second line and longer than first line. The
End.
void main()
{
FILE *fp;
char str[128];
fp = fopen(“sample.txt", “r”);
fgets(str, 126, fp);
printf("%s", str); Output:
fclose(fp); This is first line.
} Note: Only first line displayed because new
line occurred. 12

13. fputs
• fputs writes text string to the stream. The string's null
terminator is not written.
• Declaration: int fputs(const char *str, FILE *stream);
• Returns nonnegative on success and EOF on failure.
• Example of fputs:
void main()
{
FILE *fp;
fp = fopen(“test.txt", "w”);
fputs(“This is written to test file.", fp);
fclose(fp);
}
13

14. fflush
• fflush empties the file io buffer and causes the
contents to be written into the file immediately.
• The buffer is a block of memory used to temporarily
store data before actually writing it onto the disk.
• The data is only actually written to the file when the
buffer is full, the file stream is closed or when
fflush() is called.
• The fflush function returns zero if successful or EOF
if an error was encountered.
14

15. rename
• The function rename changes the name of the
file oldfilename to newfilename.
• Declaration:
int rename(const char *old_filename, const char *new_filename )
• It returns 0​ upon success and non-zero value on error.
• Example of rename:
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
{
int renameFile = 0;
renameFile = rename("MYFILE.txt", "HELLO.txt");
if (renameFile != 0)
printf("Error in renaming file.");
getch();
} 15

16. remove
• Deletes the file whose name is specified in filename.
• Declaration: int remove ( const char * filename )
• 0 is returned if file is successfully deleted and a nonzero value
is returned on failure.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>
void main ()
{
if ( remove("myfile.txt”) != 0 )
printf( "Error deleting file" );
else
printf( "File successfully deleted" );
getch();
}
16

17. freopen
• freopen() is used to redirect the system-defined files stdin,
stdout and stderr to some other file.
• Header file: stdio.h
• Declaration: freopen(“filename”, “mode”, stream);
• It Returns a pointer to stream on success or a null pointer
on failure.
17

18. • Example of freopen:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>
void main()
{
FILE *fp;
printf("This will display on the screen.n");
if((fp = freopen(“test.txt", "w" ,stdout)) == NULL)
{
printf("Cannot open file.n");
}
printf("This will be written to the file OUT.");
fclose(fp);
} 18

19. ferror
• ferror checks for a file error.
• Header File: stdio.h
• Declaration: int ferror(FILE *stream);
• It returns 0 if no error has occurred and nonzero integer if
an error has occurred.
• ferror example:
19

20. • Example of ferror:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>
void main()
{
FILE *fp;
fp=fopen(“test.txt", “w")
putc('C', fp);
if(ferror(fp))
{
printf("File Errorn");
}
fclose(fp);
} 20

21. fgetpos and fsetpos
• fgetpos gets the file position indicator.
• fsetpos moves the file position indicator to a specific
location in a file.
• Declaration: int fgetpos(FILE *stream, fpos_t *pos)
– stream: A pointer to a file stream.
– pos: A pointer to a file position.
• They returns zero on success and nonzero on failure
21

22. • Example of fgetpos and fsetpos:
#include <stdio.h>
void main ()
{
FILE *fp;
fpos_t position;
fp = fopen (“test.txt","w");
fgetpos (fp, &position);
fputs (“I like BCA", fp);
fsetpos (fp, &position);
fputs (“We“,fp);
fclose (fp);
} 22

23. Command line arguments
• What is a command line argument?
It is a parameter supplied to a program when the program
is invoked.
• main can take two arguments called argc and argv and the
information contained in the command line is passed on to
the program through these arguments, when main is called
up by the system.
main(int argc , char *argv[])
• The variable argc is an argument counter that counts the
number of arguments on the command line.
• The argv is an argument vector and represents an array of
character pointers that point to the command line
arguments. 23

24. • Write a program that will receive a filename and a line of text as
command line arguments and write the text to the file.
• Explaination of programme:
• Command line is:
cmdl test AAAAAA BBBBBB CCCCCC DDDDDD EEEEEE FFFFFF GGGGGG
• Each word in the command line is an argument to the main and
therefore the total number of arguments is 9.
• The argument vector argv[1] points to the string test and therefore
the statement fp = fopen(argv[1], "w"); opens a file with the name
test.
• The for loop that follows immediately writes the remaining 7
arguments to the file test.
24

25. #include <stdio.h>
void main(argc, argv)
int argc; /* argument count */
char *argv[]; /* list of arguments */
{
FILE *fp;
int i;
char word[15];
fp = fopen(argv[1], "w"); /* open file with name argv[1] */
printf("nNo. of arguments in Command line = %dnn", argc);
for(i = 2; i < argc; i++)
fprintf(fp,"%s ", argv[i]); /* write to file argv[1] */
fclose(fp);
25

26. /* Writing content of the file to screen */
printf("Contents of %s filenn", argv[1]);
fp = fopen(argv[1], "r");
for(i = 2; i < argc; i++)
{
fscanf(fp,"%s", word);
printf("%s ", word);
}
fclose(fp);
printf("nn");
/* Writing the arguments from memory */
for(i = 0; i < argc; i++)
printf("%*s n", i*5,argv[i]);
} 26

27. Output:
C:> cmdl test AAAAAA BBBBBB CCCCCC DDDDDD EEEEEE FFFFFF GGGGG
No. of arguments in Command line = 9
Contents of test file
AAAAAA BBBBBB CCCCCC DDDDDD EEEEEE FFFFFF GGGGGG
C:>cmdl.EXE //This is argv[0]
TEXT //This is argv[1]
AAAAAA //This is argv[2]
BBBBBB
CCCCCC
DDDDDD
EEEEEE
FFFFFF
GGGGGG 27

28. 28