File reading problem (using GCC on Linux and Cygwin) - c

Question

I am using the following program to find out the size of a file and allocate memory dynamically. This program has to be multi-platform functional.
But when I run the program on Linux machine and on a Windows machine using Cygwin, I see different outputs — why?
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
/*
Observation on Linux
When reading text file remember
the content in the text file if arranged in lines like below:
ABCD
EFGH
the size of file is 12, its because each line is ended by \r\n, so add 2 bytes for every line we read.
*/
off_t fsize(char *file) {
struct stat filestat;
if (stat(file, &filestat) == 0) {
return filestat.st_size;
}
return 0;
}
void ReadInfoFromFile(char *path)
{
FILE *fp;
unsigned int size;
char *buffer = NULL;
unsigned int start;
unsigned int buff_size =0;
char ch;
int noc =0;
fp = fopen(path,"r");
start = ftell(fp);
fseek(fp,0,SEEK_END);
size = ftell(fp);
rewind(fp);
printf("file size = %u\n", size);
buffer = (char*) malloc(sizeof(char) * (size + 1) );
if(!buffer) {
printf("malloc failed for buffer \n");
return;
}
buff_size = fread(buffer,sizeof(char),size,fp);
printf(" buff_size = %u\n", buff_size);
if(buff_size == size)
printf("%s \n", buffer);
else
printf("problem in file size \n %s \n", buffer);
fclose(fp);
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
printf(" using ftell etc..\n");
ReadInfoFromFile(argv[1]);
printf(" using stat\n");
printf("File size = %u\n", fsize(argv[1]));
return 0;
}
The problem is fread reading different sizes depends on compiler.
I have not tried on proper windows compiler yet.
But what would be the portable way to read contents from file?
Output on Linux:
using ftell etc..
file size = 34
buff_size = 34
ABCDEGFH
IJKLMNOP
QRSTUVWX
YX
using stat
File size = 34
Output on Cygwin:
using ftell etc..
file size = 34
buff_size = 30
problem in file size
ABCDEGFH
IJKLMNOP
QRSTUVWX
YX
_ROAMINGPRã9œw
using stat
File size = 34

Answer 1

Transferring comments into an answer.
The trouble is probably that on Windows, the text file has CRLF line endings ("\r\n"). The input processing maps those to "\n" to match Unix because you use "r" in the open mode (open text file for reading) instead of "rb" (open binary file for reading). This leads to a difference in the byte counts — ftell() reports the bytes including the '\r' characters, but fread() doesn't count them.
But how can I allocate memory, if I don't know the actual size? Even in this case also the return value of fread is 30/34, but my content is only of 26 bytes.
Define your content — there's a newline or CRLF at the end of each of 4 lines. When the file is opened on Windows (Cygwin) in text mode (no b), then you will receive 3 lines of 9 bytes (8 letters and a newline) plus one line with 3 bytes (2 letters and a newline), for 30 bytes in total. Compared to the 34 that's reported by ftell() or stat(), the difference is the 4 CR characters ('\r') that are not returned. If you opened the file as a binary file ("rb"), then you'd get all 34 characters — 3 lines with 10 bytes and 1 line with 4 bytes.
The good news is that the size reported by stat() or ftell() is bigger than the final number of bytes returned, so allocating enough space is not too hard. It might become wasteful if you have a gigabyte size file with every line containing 1 byte of data and a CRLF. Then you'd "waste" (not use) one third of the allocated space. You could always shrink the allocation to the required size with realloc().
Note that there is no difference between text and binary mode on Unix-like (POSIX) systems such as Linux. It does not do mapping of CRLF to NL line endings. If the file is copied from Windows to Linux without mapping the line endings, you will get CRLF at the end of each line on Linux If the file is copied and the line endings are mapped, you'll get a smaller size on Linux than under Cygwin. (Using "rb" on Linux does no harm; it doesn't do any good either. Using "rb" on Windows/Cygwin could be important; it depends on the behaviour you want.)
See also the C11 standard §7.21.2 Streams and also §7.21.3 Files.