Read a specific word from text file [closed] - c

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Here is the code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(){
FILE *filePointer ;
char dataToBeRead[50];
filePointer = fopen("input.txt", "r") ;
while( fgets ( dataToBeRead, 50, filePointer ) != NULL )
{
printf( "%s" , dataToBeRead ) ;
}
fclose(filePointer) ;
}
And this is the text file enter image description here. I want to take the word in the middle of each line and print it.

Answer 1

You can use
strtok(str, ",")
strtok(NULL, ",")
printf("%s\n", str);
This is not thread-safe or re-entrant but you're unlikely to care about that for this exercise.
If this is too fancy (I assume this is a student exercise and a simpler version may be desired) try stepping through the string character-by-character, counting commas and using putchar during the appropriate section.

Answer 2

As with many tasks in C, there are lots of ways to do this one. One suggestion could be to use the strstr() and snprintf() functions to help find the beginning of the search word then truncate the rest of line to include only the word of interest: (your code modified to use this approach)
while( fgets ( dataToBeRead, 50, filePointer ) != NULL )
{
char *temp = strstr(dataToBeRead, "SearchTerm");
if(temp != NULL)
{
char found[50]={0};
snprintf(found, strlen("searchTerm"), temp)
printf( "%s" , found) ;
}
...
Another way, (simpler, but perhaps not as satisfying) simply test the input buffer for existence of the search term using strstr() (as the above example does), but if strstr() does not return NULL, then simply print out the given search term without bothering to parse its twin from out of the line buffer.
Aside: Magic numbers (Such as 50 in your example: char dataToBeRead[50]; are not as useful as human readable and understandable variables and/or #define values, eg:
#define MAX_FILE_LINE_LEN 50
Then in your code, everywhere 50 would be used, replace it with MAX_FILE_LINE_LEN
And, while on the topic, use a more reasonable length than 50. At least 80, but 260 would not be too big for most systems either.