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Home » C Language » File Handling in C with examples | File Operations in C

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File Handling in C with examples | File Operations in C

Posted on May 7, 2022May 7, 2022 By GeekCer Education No Comments on File Handling in C with examples | File Operations in C
File Handling in C with examples | File Operations in C

File handling in C language is the process of storing, updating, retrieving, deleting data from a file using a C program.

A file, as we all know, is a container for information. The files are kept on a secondary storage device. The file can keep the information forever if the secondary storage device is protected.

File handling in C allows us to use C program for creating, updating, reading, and deleting files. On a file, you can perform the following operations.

  • New file creation
  • Open existing file
  • Read from file
  • Write to file
  • Delete file

Table of Contents

  • Types of files to process in C program
  • File handling Functions in c with examples
  • Opening a File in the Program – File: fopen()
  • How to create a file in C?
  • File opening modes in C
  • Program to open a file in read mode
  • Write a program to display the contents of a file on the screen
  • C program to open a file in write mode
  • C program to open a file in append mode

Types of files to process in C program

  1. Text files
  2. Binary Files

What is difference between text and binary files? Using a basic text editor, we create a text file with the .txt extension. Binary files hold data and information in a binary format of 0s and 1s. The application creates binary files with the.bin extension, which substitutes for the lack of text files in the program.

File handling Functions in c with examples

To open, read, write more data, create a new file, close or delete a file, search for a file, and so on, the C language offers us with a number of functions.

#FunctionsDescription
1fopen()Open a file, either an existing one or a new one.
2fprintf() Adding data to a file that is already open.
3fscanf()Reads data from the file.
4fputc()Writes any character into the file.
6fgetc()Reads any character from the file.
7fclose()Closing a opened file.
8fseek()This function is used to move the file pointer to the desired location.
9fputw()Writes an integer value to file.
10fgetw()Reads an integer value to file.
11ftell()Checks the file’s current status.
12rewind()Sets a desired file pointer to the start of the file.

Opening a File in the Program – File: fopen()

To read, write, or update the file, we must first open it. The fopen() method is used to open a file in a C program.

FILE *fopen( const char * <file-name>, const char * mode );  

fopen("E:\\geekcer\\tfile.txt","w");
fopen("E:\\geekcer\\bfile.bin","rb");

How to create a file in C?

To create a file in C you need to specify the file name and opening mode in fopen() function. The file is created and then opened if the file does not exist. f a file already available on the system, this fopen() method opens file directly.

FILE *file;
file = fopen("<file-name>", "<opening-mode>");

File opening modes in C

Let’s have a look at some additional C program opening modes:

#ModelDescription
1rOpens a text file for reading only.
2wOpens a text file for writing.
3r+Allows you to read and write to a text file.
4w+Allows you to read and write to a text file.
5aOpening a file to append the content.
6a+Opening a file to append and reading data.
7rbOpening a binary file in read mode.
8rb+Opening a binary file in read and write mode.
9wbOpening a binary file in write mode.
10wb+Opening a binary file in reading and writing mode.
11abOpening a binary file in append mode.
12ab+Opening a binary file in reading and append mode.

Program to open a file in read mode

FILE * fp;
fp = fopen("<file-name>", "r");

#include 
int main() {
  FILE * fp;
  fp = fopen("file.txt", "r");
  if (fp == NULL) {
    printf("File is not available, please check!\n");
  }
  fclose(fp);
  return 0;
}

Write a program to display the contents of a file on the screen


#include 
int main() {
  FILE * fp;
  int c;
  fp = fopen("file.txt", "r");
  c = getc(fp);
  while (c != EOF) {
    putchar(c);
    c = getc(fp);
  }
  fclose(fp);
  return 0;
}

Output:
Hello, Welcome to C Programming Language.

C program to open a file in write mode

FILE * fp;
fp = fopen("<file-name>", "w");

#include 
int main() {
  FILE * file;
  /* Opening the file in write mode */
  file = fopen("file.txt", "w");
  /* Write string to opened file */
  fprintf(file, "%s", "Example of writing content into file.");
  /* Closing the file */
  fclose(file);
  return 0;
}

C program to open a file in append mode

FILE * fp;
fp = fopen("<file-name>", "a");

#include 
int main() {
  FILE * fp;
  fp = fopen("file.txt", "a");
  fprintf(fp, "%s", "The appended content.");
  fclose(fp);
  return 0;
}

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