I am trying to write user input to a txt file using a while loop.
But for some reason that I don't know, the while loop doesn't stop by clicking 'enter'.
when I click 'enter', I see "while loop executed" so I know the while loop iterated again even though I wanted to stop the while loop.
How to do it in a right way?
P.S: I use Microsoft Visual Studio recommended by my professor.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
void main()
{
//writing to file
char write[100];
char fileName[100];
printf("give a name for file: ");
gets_s(fileName,99);
strcat(fileName,".txt");
FILE* pF = fopen(fileName, "w");
printf("what needs to be written?\n: ");
while(gets_s(write,99) != NULL)
{
printf("whileloop executed\n");
fprintf(pF,"%s\n", write);
}
fclose(pF);
}
Per Microsoft's gets_s() documentation, gets_s() returns NULL on end-of-file and error conditions:
Return Value
Returns buffer if successful. A NULL pointer indicates an error or
end-of-file condition. Use ferror or feof to determine which one
has occurred.
Hitting the enter key does not close the input stream and cause an end-of-file condition. It just places a zero-length line terminated with a newline in the input stream.
To do that on Windows from a terminal, one usually has to enter the CTRL-Z key combination.
You need to do some handling there as gets_s() will return and empty string when enter is hit. You can write an extra function to handle that:
size_t my_gets(char *buf,size_t len)
{
size_t ret=0;
if(gets_s(buf,len))
ret = strlen(buf);
return ret;
}
Then change your loop to:
while(my_gets(write,99))
{
...
P.S.- You should avoid calling variables with the same name of system functions (i.e. write).
Related
I am trying to make a program which will store the data entered by the user in a text file whose name is provided by the user. Program will terminate when the user enters exit. strcmp function of string.h is used for string comparison and fgets() is used to read data from stdin.
Here is my code.
#include<stdio.h>
#include<string.h>
void main()
{
char file[60]; // will store file name
printf("Enter file name: ");
fgets(file, 59, stdin);
FILE *fp = fopen(file, "a+"); // open file in append mode
if(fp == NULL){
printf("File not found !");
return;
}
char data[100];
printf("Enter some data to add to file(exit to terminate): ");
fgets(data, 99, stdin);
int flag = strcmp(data, "exit");
while(flag != 0){
fputs(data, fp);
fgets(data, 59, stdin);
flag = strcmp(data, "exit");
printf("%d\n", flag); // for checking whether string are correctly comapred or not
}
printf("Bye");
}
Program does not terminate even if i enter exit. I have also tried concatenating "\n" at the end of string input by user but that also doesn't help. Although, gets() function works fine, but i know it is not preferred to use to I shifted to fgets() but it doesn't work for me.
Check the man page for fgets(), it reads and stores the newline (caused by pressing ENTER) after the entered input. Thus, the strcmp() fails.
You have to manually strip the input buffer off the newline, before you can compare the input. A simple yet elegant way of doing that would be
data[strcspn(data, "\n")] = 0;
fgets reads in a complete "line", i.e. a sequence of characters until (and including!) a new line character. Hence, when a user presses "Enter", the new line will be part of the string read in and a strcmp(data,"exit") will evaluate to "not equal".
So either strip off the new line before comparison, or compare with a string literal including a new line. Since you write the data as is(i.e. including the new lines) to a file, it seems cumbersome to first strip the new line off and add it then in the output manually. So I'd actually suggest the second approach:
fgets(data, 100, stdin);
flag = strcmp(data, "exit\n");
An alternative would be to use strstr if excess characters do not matter (i.e. your program would exit if the user types "exit" or "asdfexitasdf". - both of which contain "exit".)
So
int flag = strstr(data, "exit");
if(flag != NULL)
//exit the program
else
//stay in the program
I am trying to write a simple C program that loads a text-file, prints the first line to screen, waits for the user to press enter and then prints the next line, and so on.
As only argument it accepts a text-file that is loaded as a stream "database". I use the getline()-function for this, according to this example. It compiles fine, successfully loads the text-file, but the program never enters the while-loop and then exits.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
FILE *database = NULL; // input file
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
/* assuming the user obeyed syntax and gave input-file as first argument*/
char *input = argv[1];
/* Initializing input/database file */
database = fopen(input, "r");
if(database == NULL)
{
fprintf(stderr, "Something went wrong with reading the database/input file. Does it exist?\n");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
printf("INFO: database file %s loaded.\n", input);
/* Crucial part printing line after line */
char *line = NULL;
size_t len = 0;
ssize_t read;
while((read = getline(&line, &len, database)) != -1)
{
printf("INFO: Retrieved line of length %zu :\n", read);
printf("%s \n", line);
char confirm; // wait for user keystroke to proceed
scanf("%c", &confirm);
// no need to do anything with "confirm"
}
/* tidy up */
free(line);
fclose(database);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
I tried it with fgets() -- I can also post that code --, but same thing there: it never enters the while-loop.
It might be something very obvious; I am new to programming.
I use the gcc-compiler on Kali Linux.
Change your scanf with fgetline using stdin as your file parameter.
You should step through this in a debugger, to make sure your claim that it never enters the while loop is correct.
If it truly never enters the while loop, it is necessarily because getline() has returned -1. Either the file is truly empty, or you have an error reading the file.
man getline says:
On success, getline() and getdelim() return the number of
characters
read, including the delimiter character, but not including the termi‐
nating null byte ('\0'). This value can be used to handle embedded
null bytes in the line read.
Both functions return -1 on failure to read a line (including end-of-
file condition). In the event of an error, errno is set to indicate
the cause.
Therefore, you should enhance your code to check for stream errors and deal with errno -- you should do this even when your code works, because EOF is not the only reason for the function
to return -1.
int len = getline(&line, &len, database);
if(len == -1 && ferror(database)) {
perror("Error reading database");
}
You can write more detailed code to deal with errno in more explicit ways.
Unfortunately handling this thoroughly can make your code a bit more verbose -- welcome to C!
This question already has answers here:
Removing trailing newline character from fgets() input
(14 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
I'm prompting the user for the file name, but once the user presses enter, it takes that into the file name as well. so the file is never found.
int main (){
char file[100];
FILE *fp;
printf("Please enter a valid filename:\n");
fgets(file,100,stdin);
fp=fopen(file, "r");
if(!fp){
printf("File not found.\n"); \\This will always happen because a new line is added to the user's input.
return 1;}
If I use
scanf("%s", file);
The issue doesn't happen, but I heard scanf is not a good function to use and would introduce new issues. How can I solve the new line problem with fgets?
After fgets(file,100,stdin);, do this file[strlen(file)-1]='\0';, it will remove \n from the code. To use strlen() function you need to include string.h in your code.
Try this modified code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
int main (){
char file[100];
FILE *fp;
printf("Please enter a valid filename:\n");
fgets(file,100,stdin);
file[strlen(file)-1]='\0'; //Removing \n from input
fp=fopen(file, "r");
if(fp==NULL)
{
printf("File not found.\n");
return 1;
}
else
{
printf("File found!\n");
fclose(fp);
return 0;
}
}
fgets() returns the \n new line code.... that's what it does. You must wipe out that character.
Given that overflowing, or at least totally filling, incoming buffers is a popular attack vector I prefer code that defends against such.
char *cp;
file[(sizeof file)-1)] = '\0'; /* assure \0 termination on buffer fill attack */
cp = strchr( file, '\n' ); /* find expected \n, but allow for none */
if ( cp ) *cp = '\0'; /* safely clear closing \n */
After succesfully reading a re-directed file to my program from the console, I ask a user to enter a word, then use scanf() to read in the word.
The problem i'm having is that scanf() is immediately reading in junk characters and then the program continues. It doesn't even pause to let the user enter anything in the console. It doesn't happen when I don't open a file. EVERYTHING else works perfectly. What could be the issue:
**I tried everything suggested, still can't get it to work. I've made a new project that is just for getting this part to work, here it is. Ignore that scanf is only looking for a single character, even though I ask for a word. I did this just to see if the program would actually pause and allow me to enter something, but it doesn't. Just enters some garbage and program ends.
main(){
int n,i;
char ch;
char line[80];
while(fgets(line, 80, stdin) != NULL){
for(i=0;i<80;i++){
ch=line[i];
if(ch=='\n'){
printf("%c",ch);
break;
}
else{
printf("%c",ch);
}
}
}
printf("Please enter a word: ");
scanf("%c",&ch);
}
You can't re-direct stdin from a file and then also use the keyboard for input (that I know of). If you want to do that, it's simpler to have the program take the input file as a command-line argument and then run it like so: prog myfile.txt. Also, leave yourself a pad with fgets() -- use one less than the allocated array for maxlen. It's always safest with C char arrays to use one less than the allocated length for anything requiring a maximum length in case the maximum length is not including the '\0' terminating character.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(int argc,char *argv[])
{
FILE *f;
int i;
char line[80];
if (argc<2)
{
printf("Usage: %s <inputfile>\n",argv[0]);
exit(10);
}
/* Open file and echo to stdout */
f=fopen(argv[1],"r");
if (f==NULL)
{
printf("Cannot open file %s for input.\n",argv[1]);
exit(20);
}
while (fgets(line, 79, f) != NULL)
printf("%s",line);
fclose(f);
/* Get user input from stdin */
printf("Please enter a word: ");
if (fgets(line,79,stdin)==NULL)
{
printf("Nothing entered. Program aborted.\n");
exit(30);
}
/* Remove CR/LF from end of line */
for (i=strlen(line)-1;i>=0 && (line[i]=='\n' || line[i]=='\r');i--)
;
line[i+1]='\0';
printf("The word entered is: '%s'\n",line);
return(0);
}
sscanf is used to input from a stream or a buffer, and in unix stdin is considered as file so u are supposed to use fscanf which inputs from a file so use fscanf(stdin,"%s",testword);
While doing filing im stuck here.The condition of the while loop is not working.The compiler says cannot convert int to FILE*.
while(pFile!=EOF);
Should i typecase the pFile to int?I tried that but it did not worked.Thanks in advance.
The complete code is:
int main()
{
char ch;
char name[20];
FILE *pFile;
int score;
pFile=fopen("database.txt","r");
if(pFile!=NULL)
{
while(pFile!=EOF);
{
fscanf(pFile,"%c",ch);
}
}
else
printf("Cant open the file.......");
fclose(pFile);
return 0;
}
First, you do not want to use while (!feof(pFile)) -- ever! Doing so will almost inevitably lead to an error where the last data you read from the file appears to be read twice. It's possible to make it work correctly, but only by adding another check in the middle of the loop to exit when EOF is reached -- in which case, the loop condition itself will never be used (i.e., the other check is the one that will actually do the job of exiting the loop).
What you normally do want to do is check for EOF as you read the data. Different functions indicate EOF in different ways. fgets signals failure (including EOF) by returning NULL. Most others (getc, fgetc, etc.) do return EOF, so you typically end up with something like this:
int ch; // Note, this should be int, NOT char
while (EOF != (ch=getc(pFile)))
process(ch);
or:
char buffer[MAX_LINE_SIZE];
while (fgets(buffer, sizeof(buffer), pFile))
process(buffer);
With scanf, checking for success is a little more complex -- it returns the number of successful conversions, so you want to make sure that matches what you expected. For example:
while (1 == fscanf(fPfile, "%d", &input_number))
process(input_number);
In this case I've used 1 because I specified 1 conversion in the format string. It's also possible, however, for conversion to fail for reasons other than EOF, so if this failes, you'll frequently want to check feof(pFile). If it returns false, do something like reading the remainder of the line, showing it to the user in a warning message, and then continuing to read the rest of the file.
It depends what pFile and EOF are defined as, but I will asssume that pFile is a *FILE, and EOF is from stdio.h. Then I guess you should do something like:
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#define FILENAME "file.txt"
int main(void) {
FILE *pFile;
int ch;
pFile = fopen(FILENAME,"r");
if (pFile) {
while ((ch = getc(pFile)) != EOF) {
printf("Read one character: %c\n", ch);
}
close(pFile);
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
} else {
printf("Unable to open file: '%s'\n", FILENAME);
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
}
which yields
$ echo "abc" > file.txt
$ /tmp/fileread
Read one character: a
Read one character: b
Read one character: c
Read one character:
# last character being a linefeed
Assuming pFile is your file handle, this doesn't change as you read from the file. EOF is returned by e.g. fgetc(). See e.g. http://www.drpaulcarter.com/cs/common-c-errors.php#4.2 for common ways to solve this.
here is correct way:
c = getc(pFile);
while (c != EOF) {
/* Echo the file to stdout */
putchar(c);
c = getc(pFile);
}
if (feof(pFile))
puts("End of file was reached.");
else if (ferror(pFile))
puts("There was an error reading from the stream.");
else
/*NOTREACHED*/
puts("getc() failed in a non-conforming way.");
fclose(pFile);
pFile is a pointer to a file. EOF is usually defined as -1, a signed integer.
What you should do is fopen, make sure pFile != NULL, then call some function on the file handle until that function returns EOF. A pointer will (or rather, should) never be EOF. But a function acting on that pointer may return EOF.
I'm guessing you want to keep looping while you haven't hit end-of-file. In that case, you are looking for this:
while (!feof(pFile))
{
...
}
That said, this is still not quite correct. feof will only return true once it tries to read beyond the end of the file. This means feof can return false and yet there is no more data to read. You should really try your operation and only check for end of file if it fails:
char buffer[SIZE];
while (fgets(buffer, sizeof(buffer), pFile))
{
...
}
if (!feof(pFile))
{
// fgets failed for some reason *other* then end-of-file
}