File Handling in C -

File Handling in C

File handling is a crucial aspect of programming, enabling applications to interact with external data storage in a structured manner. In the realm of C programming, mastering file handling allows developers to read from and write to files, making it an essential skill for creating applications that work with persistent data. In this article, we’ll explore the concepts of file handling in C, including reading, writing, opening, and closing files.

File handling in C involves operations related to files on a computer’s storage system. This encompasses tasks like creating, opening, reading from, writing to, and closing files. Files can store various types of data, from text to binary information, and C provides tools to manipulate and manage these files efficiently.

In the below PDF we discuss about File Handling in detail in simple language, Hope this will help in better understanding.

Opening and Closing Files

Before performing any file operations, you need to open the file.

FILE *file_pointer = fopen("filename.txt", "mode");

The “mode” specifies the intended operation, such as “r” for reading, “w” for writing, “a” for appending, and more.

Once you’re done with file operations, you should close the file using the fclose() function:

fclose(file_pointer);

Reading from Files

To read data from a file, you can use functions like fscanf() or fgets(). Here’s an example using fgets() to read lines from a text file:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    FILE *file = fopen("data.txt", "r");
    if (file == NULL) {
        printf("File could not be opened.");
        return 1;
    }

    char line[100];
    while (fgets(line, sizeof(line), file) != NULL) {
        printf("%s", line);
    }

    fclose(file);
    return 0;
}

Writing to Files

To write data to a file, you can use functions like fprintf() or fputs(). Here’s an example using fprintf() to write text to a file:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    FILE *file = fopen("output.txt", "w");
    if (file == NULL) {
        printf("File could not be opened.");
        return 1;
    }

    fprintf(file, "Hello, World!\n");
    fprintf(file, "This is a sample file handling example.\n");

    fclose(file);
    return 0;
}