File Handling

FILE HANDLING:

Whenever some amount of data has to be stored permanently in a storage media like a floppy or disk, we need to organize it in a file. The file can contain data sequential form or in a table form i.e. rows and columns.

 

C provides many functions for handling data in single character as well as multiple character formats. A few operations to be carried out on files are :

1.  Naming a file

2.  Opening a file

3.  Reading data from a file

4.  Writing data from a file

5.  Closing a file.

 

Various file handling functions:

Function name —— Operation

1) fopen()

—Creates a new file for use/ Opens an existing file for use

2) fclose()

—Closes a file which has been opened for use.

3) getc()

—Reads a character from file.

4) putc()

—Write a character to a file.

5) fprintf()

—Write a set of data values to a file.

6) fscanf()

—Read a set of data values from a file.

Various file accessing modes:

1.    “ r ” [ read only mode ] : it specifies that the file can only be read from.

2.    “ w ” [write only mode] : it specifies that the file can only be written into.

3.    “ a ” [append mode] : it specifies that the file opened is in write mode and the data added shall not be over written but shall get appended at the end of file.