Reading the files contents to the allocated string - c

Question

I am trying to read the contents of a file and copy those contents into a string which has dynamic memory. However my program keeps allocating only 8 bytes to x. Ultimately I'm trying to create a general function that can read contents from a file and then return the contents as a char. Any help is appreciated.
char* readFile(unsigned long size, char *fileName) {
FILE *file = fopen(fileName, "r");
int c;
if(file != NULL)
{
while(c != EOF){ //calculate size of file
c = fgetc(file); //store character
size++;
}
char *x = (char *)malloc((size) * (sizeof(char))); // Size of x = 8 and I'm not sure why
rewind(file);
printf("\n");
int i = 0;
while(size - 1 > i){ //Reading the files contents to the allocated string
c = fgetc(file); //store character
if(c == EOF){
break;
}
x[i] = c;
i++;
}
fclose(file);
printf("Done Reading");
}
else
{
printf("\nError: Unable to open the file for Reading.\n");
}
rewind(file);
return 0;
}
I get a segmentation fault when I run
char* str = readFile(size, originalFile);

Answer 1

I would use stat to first get the size of your file
stat() retrieves information about the file pointed
to by pathname;
And then I made some tiny modifications to your function to make it work:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
char* readFile(char *fileName) {
FILE *file;
struct stat st;
if (!(file = fopen(fileName, "r")))
return NULL;
stat(fileName, &st);
unsigned long size = st.st_size;
char *x;
if (!(x = (char *)malloc((size + 1) * (sizeof(char))))) // Size of x = 8 and I'm not sure why
return NULL;
unsigned long i = 0;
while (i < size) //Reading the files contents to the allocated string
x[i++] = getc(file);
x[i] = '\0';
fclose(file);
printf("Done Reading\n");
return x;
}
int main(void) {
char *fileName = "a.txt";
char *res = readFile(fileName);
printf("%s\n", res);
return 0;
}
Don't forget that in C strings are NULL terminated, you need to malloc size+1 to add the final '\0'.

Answer 2

This is (IMHO) an easier way to find the size of the file:
char *readFile(const char *fileName)
{
unsigned long size = 0;
char *x;
FILE *file = fopen(fileName, "r");
int c;
if (file != NULL)
{
fseek(file, 0, SEEK_END); /* SET the position at EOF */
size = ftell(file); /* Record the position at EOF to return size of file */
rewind(file); /* SET position back to Origin */
printf("size detected %ld\n", size); // reads correct size
x = (char *)malloc((size) * (sizeof(char)));
rewind(file);
printf("\n");
int i = 0;
while (size - 1 > i)
{ //Reading the files contents to the allocated string
c = fgetc(file); //store character
if (c == EOF)
{
break;
}
x[i] = c;
i++;
}
fclose(file);
printf("Done Reading\n");
}
else
{
printf("\nError: Unable to open the file for Reading.\n");
return NULL;
}
rewind(file);
return x; // * you need to return x not zero
}
Successfully reads the content of the file:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
char *data;
data = readFile("records.txt");
printf("%s\n", data);
return 0;
}