Unit 5 discusses file handling in C programming. It defines a file as a collection of bytes stored on disk where related data is stored. There are two main types of file accessing: sequential and random. Sequential files are processed line-by-line while random accessing allows accessing any point in the file. Common file handling functions in C include fopen(), fclose(), fread(), fwrite(), fseek(), ftell() among others. Files are needed to permanently store data for programs to access even after terminating. Reading from files uses functions like fscanf() while writing uses fprintf(). The key aspects of files, records and fields are also discussed along with examples of reading and writing to files in C.